ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Following the Broncos' Week 3 loss to the Miami Dolphins, Head Coach Sean Payton emphasized the importance of learning from the defeat and moving forward toward Week 4.
"I think that you lean on your leadership," said Pa of how to ensure Sunday's loss doesn't linger. "One [loss] can't become two, [and two] can't become three. If we allow that to happen, then we're missing some of the things that we're talking about right now. That was one of the things I brought up yesterday after the game, and again this morning. You lose that game, and you lose it. It's worth a loss. Now, you have to pay attention to how poor it was. You can't ignore that or gloss over that. Then you go from there. We'll pick ourselves up here this week and get ready to play next weekend."
As the Broncos look to rebound from the 70-20 loss, Payton said one key is to embrace the discomfort and work through the struggles to improve.
"I think there's a grit element, and a toughness element," Payton said. "It can be unpleasant. One of the things we preach all the time about finding smart, tough players is it's not for just for the three hours on game day — … our league brings us this every year for every team. These are moments where you find out a lot about each other. We have to have a better work week than last week. We have to have a good plan in place for the team that we're playing, and we have to be able to take the coaching. Then ourselves as coaches, say, 'Hey, where did we fail? Where did we not do a good enough job?' That has to happen quickly."
Payton said the Broncos must improve their attention to detail during practice, and he specifically identified penalties and turnovers on offense and failing to set the edge on defense as areas where the team must get better.
"This is one of those weeks where when you take a butt whooping like that, you find out a lot about everyone," Payton said. "It's a tough film to watch. I debated whether we were going to show it or not, but I think we would be remiss if we didn't. We have to sit here today — as unpleasant as it's going to be — we have to get these things cleaned up."
Payton acknowledged the process of evaluating the game and making corrections will not necessarily be enjoyable.
"It was a tough day," Payton said. "Today is not going to be fun, and it probably won't be fun any time soon until we start winning some games."
Payton, though, remains confident the Broncos will be able to rebound from a difficult loss and find success.
"We're going to work our tail off and get this ship straightened away," Payton said. "That's going to happen. There's going to be a process involved in that. Certainly, there's a lot of work ahead of us. The key is finding these guys, putting them in the right positions to be successful, and then that confidence that comes with winning. That's the main thing."
