Broncos defense fights frustration by turning it into motivation

The lack of offensive production is no doubt frustrating, but the Broncos defense is channeling that to help the team.

Now for the weekly story on how the Denver Broncos defense doesn’t become frustrated.

This is the same story of the last six years where the Broncos defense plays remarkable football yet gets no help from the offense.

Denver defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero was asked if he talks to the defense to ensure division doesn’t creep into the locker room.

“Absolutely,” he said to the Denver media. “At the end of the day, we have to win as a team, and we have to find a way to win as a team. One big point that we make to the guys is that we haven’t played our best football, so we have to continue to find ways to better ourselves. (We have to) focus on that and let the offense handle the offense.

“There is a lot of season ahead of us, too, so we can’t be short-sighted. We have to look at the long road, continue to get better and understand there’s still — how many more games do we have? 11? Something like that? Yeah, 11.”

Given how Broncos safety Justin Simmons responded to the tough loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday, the frustration is growing. And it’s understandable. Nathaniel Hackett, Russell Wilson and the offense are not doing their job.

As a reminder, Simmons vented his post-game frustrations by saying “it starts with leadership.”

The job for Evero and his defensive staff is to ensure the defensive players channel that frustration in a good way.

“I just think there (are) frustrations with all of us when we lose,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter who’s at fault. We didn’t win the game and that’s the only thing matters. We’re all frustrated because we don’t want to be 2-4. What I appreciate about this group is that each week, we come in on Wednesday, or whatever that first day is, and we just go to work. We can’t worry about what happened and where we are in terms of record stuff because we can’t control the past. We can only focus on what’s ahead of us.”

For Simmons and the rest of the Broncos, it starts with getting a win on Sunday against the New York Jets.

That will go a long way to settling the frustration.

“It’s recognizing that we are who we are,” Simmons said to the media. “We’re sitting here 2-4 and 0-2 in the west. There’s no (thought of), ‘Oh, put that to the side.’ That’s who we are. It’s also recognizing that there is still plenty of ball left to change our season around. We’ve seen in years past with different teams. As soon as you get a couple (of) wins under your belt and you’re on that streak, you just find a rhythm and hit the ground running.

“For me, I believe that with the guys that we have — offense, defense, special teams, coaches. We have everything we need in this building. We just have to believe in each other, block out the noise, and focus on the task at hand. That’s the Jets on Sunday.”