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SAN DIEGO — Nothing moved. And nothing came easy all night. So why should this darn elevator be any different?

With head bowed and eyes downcast and disappointed by a , Broncos offensive coordinator Rick Dennison stood on the third level of the stadium late Thursday, after getting beat by San Diego, and pushed the button in a hurry to get back to the Denver locker room.

But the elevator was stuck in the basement. Dennison was going nowhere fast, the same as the Broncos’ offense. He stared into space, stuck with the realization Denver went from undefeated to a team dealing with 99 problems and a two-game losing streak in a span of barely 100 hours. The high of winning the Super Bowl? That抖阴ap gone.

Get well soon, Gary Kubiak.

The Broncos look sick without you. But Denver did not lose to the Chargers because Kubiak was back in Denver on doctor鈥檚 orders, recovering from a migraine that sent him to a hospital Sunday night. What this loss showed is everything that抖阴ap wrong with this offense cannot possibly be fixed in four days. Struggling to make a first down, much less find the end zone, for much of the game, the Broncos were as ugly as the golf-ball sized knot on the dinged left shoulder of Trevor Siemian.

鈥淲e got to look at ourselves and get this offense fixed,” Broncos offensive tackle Donald Stephenson said.

Was there any way the Broncos could have connected a headset from Siemian鈥檚 helmet to the Barcalounger back in Colorado where Kubiak watched this debacle?

Let抖阴ap be generous and label the play-calling of Dennison as scared. He showed zero trust in Mr. Dink (a.k.a. Siemian, who might not throw the ball downfield if you double-dog-dared him). And the passing chart does not lie. Siemian did not complete a pass more than 10 yards past the line of scrimmage until the fourth quarter, when San Diego already owned an 18-point lead. Far too often, what the Broncos did looked precisely like the painfully conservative game plan employed late in Super Bowl 50, when the Broncos were trying to hang onto a lead by their fingernails and protect old, broken-down Peyton Manning from himself.

But maybe the script was nothing more than stale rewrite of the loss to Atlanta. In the first half against the Falcons, rookie quarterback Paxton Lynch was declared unready to play in the NFL when Denver gained 76 yards on 24 offensive plays and managed only three points. In the opening half against San Diego, Siemian produced three points with an offense that gained 60 yards on 20 snaps.

The Chargers could have, should have and would have put away the Broncos once, twice, three times during the three quarters that Denver鈥檚 offense was stuck in idle. But there鈥檚 a reason I gave our old friend and San Diego coach Mike McCoy the nickname of Milquetoast.

McCoy does not know how to go for the jugular. It抖阴ap not in his DNA. The Chargers settled for field goals, leaving open the possibility that Denver might somehow find a way to win and San Diego would find a way to lose in the end, as has been the habit of both teams.

After tackle Russell Okung鈥檚 holding penalty in the end zone handed the Chargers a safety and a 21-3 early in the fourth quarter, the Broncos recovered a fumble on the free kick at midfield. Siemian led a touchdown drive, and Denver added a field goal to pull within eight points of San Diego. So there was hope. And hope did not die until the game鈥檚 waning seconds, when the Broncos recovered an onside kick and had a shot to tie, needing a Hail Mary and a two-point conversion.

But this offense does not have a prayer. What spoke loudest in defeat was how silent Broncos offensive players were in the cramped, uncomfortable visiting locker room. Emmanuel Sanders refused to look up from his cellphone. Demaryius Thomas, bent over at the waist, stared at the back of his locker. C.J. Anderson didn鈥檛 have anything to say.

I asked linebacker Brandon Marshall if the defense was beginning to get frustrated.

鈥淚t’s tough to say. We held them to 19 points, if you look at the safety,” Marshall. “And we almost had a fourth-quarter comeback. But it … was … just tough, man.”

The aura of invincibility? That’s gone.

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