Eric Decker walked through the Broncos’ locker room at Dove Valley on Sunday afternoon, a white AFC West champions T-shirt and a black Sharpie marker in hand. One by one, Decker approached his teammates and asked for a signature.
Decker plans to have the shirt framed and keep it at his house as a permanent reminder of Denver’s wild 2011 season.
“We accomplished some good things,” said Decker, a second-year wide receiver.
Players arrived at Dove Valley less than 12 hours after their season ended in Foxborough, Mass., with an all-around disappointing performance in a 45-10 loss to New England in the divisional round of the playoffs.
The team plane didn’t land at Denver International Airport until after 4 a.m., and players were exhausted as they began the tedious process of cleaning out their lockers. Many players gathered together around a table on the offensive side of the locker room to watch the other AFC divisional playoff game between the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans before heading into a final full-squad meeting. Players also received their final physicals, and many received routine day-after-game medical treatment in the training room.
The sting of Saturday’s loss remained fresh, and players tried to balance the frustration of a disappointing end to the season with the excitement of the ride from 1-4 at the bye week to a divisional title at 8-8.
“People think we should walk around with a smile on our face because we made the playoffs and won a playoff game,” said cornerback Champ Bailey, a team captain. “But we came up short again. I don’t have a whole lot of time left (as a player). We didn’t win. So now we have to start all over again.
“That’s not to say everybody should have their heads down. There’s definitely a better feeling than last year because we know we’re headed in the right direction.”
The atmosphere at Dove Valley was dramatically different from locker-cleanout day at the end of 2010. Last year, players left the facility after a 4-12 season and facing a very uncertain future because of turnover on the coaching staff and the impending labor battle between the players and the league.
At least now, Broncos players feel like they have stability in the coaching staff and the front office, and the confidence that comes with winning nine games, including last week’s wild-card playoff victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“We had our ups and downs, more downs than ups. But we definitely overcame most of them,” linebacker Joe Mays said. “By us having those downs, we became a close-knit team. That’s one thing I love about this team — we never took no for an answer. We were going to try to outwork each person we played.”
Lindsay H. Jones: 303-954-1262 or ljones@denverpost.com
