ENGLEWOOD • Coach Mike Shanahan said he couldn’t eat. Running back Tatum Bell doesn’t think he said a word after he got home to his family Sunday night. Tight end Daniel Graham said he couldn’t stop replaying the game in his head. Receiver Brandon Stokley said he didn’t sleep very well, repeatedly thinking about Denver’s final pass that hit him in the hands.

When the Broncos came to work Monday, they obviously hadn’t moved on from Sunday’s devastating 30-23 loss to Buffalo that kept them from clinching the AFC West. After failing to win the AFC West against Buffalo, they have to play at San Diego on Sunday night with the division title on the line. The Broncos are 8½-point underdogs in Las Vegas casinos.

“Everybody is pretty down still,” Bell said. “We felt like we should have had that game. We jumped up on them early, we just couldn’t finish them.”

The Broncos limp into this Sunday’s game, literally and figuratively. They put two more tailbacks, Selvin Young and P.J. Pope, on injured reserve. Young suffered a ruptured disk in his neck Sunday and Pope tore his hamstring. They’re the sixth and seventh Broncos tailbacks to go on injured reserve this year. Cory Boyd will be signed from the practice squad and Alex Haynes will be signed off the street.

Denver didn’t need that dose of bad news. The Broncos have lost two in a row and the Chargers have won three in a row to force Sunday’s division championship showdown. Denver could become the second team since the NFL went to divisions in 1967 to have a three-game lead in its division and not make the playoffs, joining the 2003 Vikings. No team has had a three-game lead with three to play and not made the playoffs.

“Everybody is disgusted, any time you have an opportunity to win the AFC West and it’s very disappointing,” Shanahan said. “If you don’t feel that way, you’re not made of the right stuff.”

Not surprisingly, the Broncos didn’t have much bounce in their step Monday. The general attitude was they could regroup, but that seems like a stiff challenge after such a disappointment. Denver came into Sunday’s game against Buffalo focused and excited to win the division at home, and let the opportunity pass.

“We have to put Sunday behind us and move on and get ready for San Diego because that’s all we’ve got,” Stokley said. “That’s all we can do. We can’t let this affect us any more.”

The Broncos have some reasons for hope. They beat the Chargers in the second week of the season, albeit after a blown fumble call by officials late in the game. They are 4-3 on the road, including wins against Atlanta and the New York Jets, two winning teams. They have played some of their best games when few figured they would win.

But there will be plenty of pressure on the Broncos this week, trying to save a playoff berth against a hot Chargers team that started 4-8 but held off elimination each of the past three weeks.

“I don’t think anybody really would have thought it would have come down to this,” Graham said. “It is what it is, we are here and we have to deal with it and we have to prepare for it and we’ll be ready on Sunday.”

Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler got the call the old fashioned way from quarterbacks coach Jeremy Bates after his helmet radio malfunctioned during the second half of Denver’s 30-23 loss to the Bills on Sunday. Photo by MARK REIS, THE GAZETTE