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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- **The touchdowns, the franchise records, the player of the week honors?
All special experiences that wide receiver Eric Decker noted he was proud to share with his teammates in the wake of the Broncos' 35-28 win over the Chiefs on Sunday – and all experiences that Decker will now quickly put behind him as he readies himself for the Broncos' upcoming showdown with the Titans.
"It's quite an honor to see the names that have been nominated before and got it – to be with them is something special," Decker said regarding being named AFC Offensive Player of the Week on Wednesday. "Sometimes you never think you're going to be able to get there and when you do it's a special honor. Like I was saying, it's something to share with your teammates because of the hard work we've all done throughout the season and the continued success we've been having."
Decker became the first player in the Broncos' 53-year history to catch four touchdown passes in a single game on Sunday – and his 174 receiving yards set a career high. But while re-writing the Denver record book is a feat that will stay in place until someone ties or surpasses his mark, it's also an accomplishment that won't stick around very long in Decker's mind.
"(It) has been fun to I guess talk about it and re-live it but now it's on to next week," he said. "It's in the past, it's forgotten."
Just as Decker now moves on from his performance against the Chiefs, however, that same performance helped him move past a four-game streak of not finding the end zone that dated to the Broncos' 39-33 loss to the Colts in Week 7, when Decker caught eight passes for 150 yards and a touchdown.
Through the scoring drought, Decker kept on persevering on the field and in practice – something he credited in part to his teammates for continuing to push him – and that persistence paid off of Sunday.
"Teammates were pushing me and making sure that every day I got better," he said. "You kind of ride the storm and you get through it and it pays off. That is something that I think this weekend was for me. It was an accomplishment of just the grind, every day to not go in the tank, to not give up and to let things happen and come to you."
Decker now stands just 29 yards away from joining wide receiver Demaryius Thomas as the Broncos' second 1,000-yard receiver this season – the tandem also accomplished that feat in 2012. Factoring in wide receiver Wes Welker's 719 receiving yards and nine touchdowns, as well as tight end Julius Thomas' 590 yards and 10 touchdowns, the Broncos have achieved significant production from all over their receiving corps – something that Decker noted has made being a part of the offense so much fun.
"That is what is so great about this offense. Two weeks ago we ran the ball for over 200 yards and we have a receiving corps – Julius has 10 touchdowns, D.T., Wes – same thing," Decker said. "It's hard for defenses to focus in on one particular guy or two particular guys."
The balance of distribution – Decker has 63 catches to go along with 68 from Welker, 67 from Demaryius Thomas and 45 from Julius Thomas – is also a factor that Decker circled as making the Denver offense so difficult to defend.
"We have the ability to spread the ball around and make it harder to defense, it's just a benefit for us offensively going forward," he said. "Whether it's Wes one game, D.T. the other, it's just the mindset we have to be ready because you never know when that game may be coming."
And in looking forward to Sunday's game – with below-freezing temperatures forecasted for kickoff – Decker noted that despite being plenty familiar with the cold, it's difficult to ever get quite used to playing in it.
"I think, growing up in Minnesota, the cold, you never really get used to be honest. It's a mindset," he said. "You have to understand the difficulties of being cold and the challenges that come with it. It is the same game whether it's warm or cold but there are some challenges to it."
Those are challenges, however, that both teams will have to face.
"Both teams have to face it so for us it's just being mentally prepared to be able to do the things that are going to allow to have us success and not let the cold affect any of our play," Decker said.
