INGLEWOOD, Calif. — If the Denver Broncos play on the field wasn’t bad enough on Sunday, the implications of their loss was salt on the open wound.

With over a dozen players on the COVID-19 list, the Broncos’ short-handed team got whooped 34-13 in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon.

Denver clinched their fifth-straight losing season.

The Broncos were officially eliminated from the playoffs.

Their streak of missing the playoffs extended to six seasons.

They clinched last place in the AFC West for a second-straight year.

There’s only one word for all of that.

“It sucks,” Justin Simmons simply said, lost for words, when asked what the tone in the locker room was after another losing season with no chance of making the playoffs.

“It’s tough, man. You put in so much work and to go out there and have that type of performance all around is, you know, tough,” the star safety continued. “I don’t even know if I can put a word on it in terms of how guys are feeling. I don’t mean to be short, but it just, it sucks.”

In 2019, the Broncos were “living in a world of suck,” as Emmanuel Sanders famously stated, later revealing that was Vic Fangio’s message to the team. Two years later, they’re still in that same world. It sucks.

“I hate to sound like a broken record, once again I apologize for being short, I just don’t know genuinely what else to say. It’s frustrating. I don’t know how to come up here and say like, this is what happened, this is what we need to do and we’ll find more ways to win. We’re just not winning. And that’s what’s frustrating about it.”

Simmons, who is one of the most eloquent speakers on the team, was lost for words time after time on Sunday evening. His silence and many pauses spoke louder than any words he eventually came up with.

“The league is about adjustment, who can handle adversity. Unfortunately, we did not handle it well in terms of today’s game, not the prep throughout the week, today’s game we did not handle that well,” Simmons stated. “That’s what’s frustrating.”

Sunday’s 21-point loss encapsulated Denver’s run down the stretch where they’ve seen themselves fall from the thick of the playoff mix to a borderline top-10 pick.

After beating the Chargers in Week 12, Denver was 6-5 with a great chance to make the playoffs and finish with a winning record.

Since, the Broncos have gone 1-4, with their only victory at home against the lowly Lions. A loss to the Chiefs in Week 18 would send Denver into the offseason on a four-game losing streak.

“I don’t think it’s not having enough talent by any stretch of the imagination,” Simmons said, when asked what is leading to Denver’s struggles. “I think everyone in this league is talented.”

“There’s a certain barrier that I’ve noticed that we just haven’t gotten over,” Simmons continued. “And when it comes down to it, you got to find ways to win the close games. There’s going to be some games where things happen, the ball doesn’t roll your way, whatever, but when the games like that we have a chance to win the close ones, those are what matter. Now at the end of the year, there’s margin for a little bit of error, right? When you put yourself in a corner like that and you don’t find ways to win the close games, that’s when things start getting out of hand. We’ve been in close games, obviously not today, but throughout most of the season and we just didn’t win them. I’m saying all of that to say, we got the talent. We just haven’t put it all together.”

For a third-straight season under Vic Fangio, the Broncos “haven’t put it together,” in Simmons’ words.

Since Gary Kubiak was in town, Denver hasn’t been able to find a winning season.

And since Peyton Manning was leading the organization, the Broncos haven’t been able to find the postseason.

On Sunday, the Broncos officially capped off another season of suck.