Chris Harris Jr. delivered a strong message to Bradley Roby on Wednesday

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — It’s been a rough week for Bradley Roby.

It started on Sunday, when he got absolutely torched by Sam Darnold and the New York Jets receiving corps, giving up 125 yards and two touchdowns on just four targets in the game. He was also one of the culprits on Isaiah Crowell’s 77-yard touchdown run, as he missed a tackle on the edge.

In the locker room after the game, the struggling corner cut through a group of media waiting to talk to him, mumbling, “There’s nothing to say” on his way out.

Before he made it to the team bus, though, he was advised that he should talk and he eventually came back to face the question.

“I don’t really have much to say; there’s not too much to say,” he said. “I don’t want to be negative in the media, so if I don’t have anything positive to say, sometimes I don’t want to say anything at all… It’s the life of a corner who always plays man-to-man, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”

The next chapter in the Roby saga came on Monday, as he was unexpectedly absent from the team’s morning meetings, eventually showing up later in the day for treatment from team doctors.

Speculation outside the building was that Roby was pulling the ole ditch-class-because-you-didn’t-do-the-assignment routine, but on Wednesday, the cornerback denied any such thing.

“Somehow, I didn’t communicate to everyone or the right people,” he said of his absence. “On my part, I communicated. They knew where I was. I don’t really watch or read the media like that, so I didn’t know what was going on. To my knowledge, people thought I just didn’t show, and that’s not true at all. Just a communication error, I believe.”

“No. I was frustrated, obviously,” he said when he was asked if frustration had to do with his absence. “But I got sick after the game. When I got home—probably an hour after being home—I got sick. I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t get a lot of sleep. I think it was both. [I was] just throwing up like crazy. I don’t know what it was—if it was something I ate. But no excuses on what went on, on the field. Just the communication on Monday, I let them know and that’s what it was.”

Despite that, according to Mike Klis of 9NEWS, Roby was slapped with a hefty fine for his unexcused absence, signifying that the team didn’t think they deserved much of the blame in the “communication issue.”

Then, on the podium Wednesday, fellow corner Chris Harris Jr. delivered a strong message to Roby, a challenge if you will.

“I’m just trying to encourage him, but it’s on you,” he said. “You’ve got to be a man. Cornerback, it’ s one-on-one a lot of the time. You can kind of control a lot of things on your own out there. Shoot, you’ve got to look at yourself in the mirror and know, ‘How bad do you want it?’ And if ‘Robe’ wants it bad enough, he’ll bounce back.”

The next few weeks will tell you a lot about just how bad the former first-round pick wants it. He’ll be in for a hefty challenge on Sunday when the Broncos take on the red-hot Los Angeles Rams, who boast a fantastic receiving corps that features Brandin Cooks, Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods.

As a final jab, when Rams’ head coach Sean McVay was asked about the Broncos defense on Wednesday afternoon, he went on and on about how good they are, eventually naming nine of the 11 starters by name. Roby, as it were, was not named.

Don’t get it twisted, though, McVay knows all about Roby, it’s up to 29 to make sure McVay knows him to for the right reasons after Sunday.