Can the Denver Broncos continue to keep their locker room united?

When you walk into the Denver Broncos locker room at Mile High Stadium, a giant Broncos logo covers the floor in front of you. To the right, you have the offensive lockers, to the left, you have the defensive lockers.

On Sunday, as the Denver Broncos fell 16-3 to the Patriots of New England, when you looked to the right, you saw dejection, defeat, a group that didn’t have the answers, but when you looked to the left, you saw a very different picture.

Frustration and annoyance were abundant as defenders put on their chains, Gucci jackets and thousand-dollar winter hats. Shining, as they always do, literally and figuratively, the defense was far from blind as to why the Denver Broncos lost to the New England Patriots on Sunday afternoon.

“When you kill yourself with two early turnovers [and] you’re not putting points up, it’s hard to win games,” safety T.J. Ward said. “Point-blank, period. That’s what we’ve been doing the last few weeks, and you see we’ve got two [losses] on that side of the column.”

“The turnovers will definitely kill you,” said cornerback Aqib Talib.

“Y’all see what has to change, I’m not going to speak on it too much,” added cornerback Chris Harris Jr.

Ward and Co. simply pointed to the massive elephant sitting right on top of that logo in the middle of that locker room: The only thing stopping the Denver Broncos from being a Super Bowl caliber football team is their wildly inept offense.

Now, this elephant has been visible to fans of the Orange & Blue for weeks now. They’ve watched as it feasted and feasted off of poor rushing performances and low scoring outputs until, finally, on Sunday, the beast grew too big to ignore. So big, in fact, it appeared that very elephant was dividing the two sides of the locker room.

Defensive leaders, though, were adamant that was not the case.

“There’s not going to be any friction,” Von Miller said. “I’m the partition here. There’s not going to be any friction. It’s just a tough loss. You’ve got grown men in here. It’s hard to accept it, especially after you put so much in during the week, and knowing what this game means to us and our organization and our fans. It’s just a tough loss, a tough one to swallow. But we’ll get over it. We’ve got two big games left, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be ready to go. We’ve got two big games left, and who knows what can happen.”

“Just being frustrated and beefing with the offense, that’s not going to get us anywhere,” Talib said. “We’re going to ride. We’re going to stick together, and we’re going to go play Christmas night.”

For the Broncos, they simply don’t have any other choice but to band together. As wild as it may seem, the team still has a great shot to make the playoffs. Yes, it’s a huge challenge but two wins in the next two weeks against the Chiefs and Raiders combined with a loss from the Dolphins—who still have to face the Patriots—and they can be right in the thick of things.

Is that so easy, though, to band together under these circumstances?

Earlier in the week, Von Miller was asked if the defense can turn it up another notch in the last three games: “I would like to think so,” he said. “But you don’t know. It would just all be talk right now until we actually [do it].”

When it comes to preventing a split locker room, the same sentiment rings true.

For almost two full years now, the defense has left every ounce of their energy on the field, doing what they could every week to will their incapable offense to a victory. While, in most cases, it would be the pack mule carrying the load on it’s back for so long that would tire, in this case, it has been the opposite.

As the defense has held their own, remaining amongst the toughest in the league, holding teams under 20 points with incredible regularity, the offense has regressed, with Sunday’s three-point output potentially being their rock bottom. That regression, plain and simple, is the reason the 2016 Broncos aren’t winning games like the 2015 squad did.

The defense can say—some of—the right things when the cameras are turned on, but their frustration is boiling over, and rightfully so. As the team enters the final two weeks of the season, these guys will be in “show-me mode.” If the offense can miraculously pull it together and help push them towards a couple of victories, there will be no trouble in River City. If not, well, you may see somebody finally tell it like it really is.

That won’t matter much, though, what’s a divided locker room when you’re done playing, anyway?