The Broncos locker room was fairly quiet on Monday.

Although the day marked the start of a new week, this weekend marks a tough road contest at New York against the Jets, the team was still trying to gather itself after Sunday’s disappointing 31-10 home loss to the Oakland Raiders.

In his post-game interview Ebenezer Ekuban called the flow of the team’s contest against the Raiders “a little bizarre.”

“But there are ebbs and flows about every game,” Ekuban admitted. “You just have to take it as-is.”

It seemed whatever way the ebbs were ebbing and the flows were flowing, Denver was swimming against the current versus Oakland.

One statistic that highlights the Broncos inability to catch a break was the fact that although the team had 21 first downs, they only finished the game with 10 points on the scoreboard.

Brandon Stokley said that stat can be attributed to lack of execution.

“That is the problem,” he said. “You kind of scratch your head at that. It comes down to mistakes. Anytime you have that many first downs and you only have 10 points there has to be a lot of mistakes.”

If there is a lesson that can be taken away from Sunday’s loss, it is that sometimes the teams taking the field on Sundays aren’t necessarily that same ones that marched out the week before. In the NFL where parity runs rampant and clubs are constantly trying to exploit each other’s weaknesses and highlight their own strengths – teams are often consistently inconsistent.

Head Coach Mike Shanahan said that type of inconsistent play from teams is something he tries to prepare for.

“I kind of anticipated that happening,” he said. “If you take a look at the stats, you get teams that match up better against certain teams. You just really don’t know what the team’s strengths and weaknesses are. A lot of times, teams have different injuries from one game to the next so you have to expect the unexpected.”

Shanahan said the Broncos can learn from their inconsistencies, taking away the positives and improving upon the mistakes.

“I think it shows of what we are capable of doing on both sides of the ball,” he said “We capable of beating a good football team on the road and we are also capable of losing. If we don’t make the plays that we normally make, sometimes we end up beating ourselves and sometimes they beat us.”

So how do the Broncos become a more consistent team?

“We’ve just got to play better,” Shanahan said.

-Jake Grilley, DenverBroncos.com

Tags: Brandon Stokley, Jake Grilley, Mike Shanahan, Oakland Raiders

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