Matured Broncos more prepared for deep run

The once-rumors have become fairly public knowledge now, the Denver Broncos didn’t handle their trip to Super Bowl XLVIII as, well, professionally as they could or should have. They seemingly celebrated being there before the game more than they prepared to put themselves in a position to be celebrating after the game. Broncos fans have since wondered how much that had to do with the 43-8 debacle.

As for the players, they learned from it, and while they still have to win two games to get back to that point, those mistakes, combined with the ones made in another playoff exit last year, have them better prepared for the playoffs as a whole.

“I think you have to be all in. You have to be all in,” linebacker Brandon Marshall told media on Saturday. “For these few weeks, or whatever the case may be and the days leading up to it, you have to be all in. I think you have to sacrifice whatever time you have and anything that you may want to do or time that you may have—the free time—you have to apply it towards football to be able to try and get that ring. I think it’s so huge. Not many players can say, ‘I have a Super Bowl ring.’ I think, right now, it’s all about sacrifice. Sacrifice your time or whatever you have and give it to the team.”

Fellow backer Danny Trevathan admitted his own personal mistakes from that Supr Bowl trip.

“I was just thinking too far ahead. I wasn’t within myself. I was being a young guy,” he explained. “I think that was the year I dropped the ball, too. I was young, but I was still growing up at the same time. To be in that situation, I was blessed, no doubt about it, but right now I just feel like I can handle it a little bit more. I had a daughter, all that. It’s just a whole bunch of things that add up to make me a better person—calm and knowing how to handle this thing. Anybody that comes through here is going to have a problem.”

“I think definitely you can take something from it,” he added. “I take what I can from it and grow and try not to put myself in that situation or be in a better situation than that.”

Current head coach Gary Kubiak wasn’t a part of the Broncos for that last trip to the sport’s greatest stage but he’s noticing the effects of they maturity gained from the experience.

“Leadership. To me, it’s about leadership. We’ve got a lot of guys on this football team that have been in a lot of playoff games,” he told. “They know and they understand what’s at stake. . . I think this group has got a lot of guys that have been there before. I can tell just watching them operate this week. They’ve been very focused.”

Leadership, sacrifice and focus. While it may have cost them a chance to already have a ring, the Broncos may have just learned what it takes to have another chance at one.