The Denver Broncos just delivered one of the most painful performances of the Sean Payton era, and it wasn’t even close. Down 31-10 heading into the 2-minute warning against the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday Night Football, Denver looked lifeless on both sides of the ball. The tone of the evening can be summed up simply: one winner and five losers. You could probably skip the winner entirely and just run through losers. That’s how bad it was for the Broncos.

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The sole winner: Evan Engram

Tight end Evan Engram was the lone bright spot for Denver, hauling in four catches for 43 yards and a touchdown with a long of 19 yards. He led the team in receiving yards and was the only pass catcher who showed up consistently for quarterback Bo Nix. Good to see Engram working well in Payton’s offense, but the fact that he stands alone on the winners list tells you everything you need to know about this game.

Bo Nix looked like a shell of himself

Bo Nix was awful. That was one of the worst games of his career, and that includes his time at Auburn. He threw a terrible interception, failed to throw the ball away when he should have, and took multiple bad sacks. There was also a play that could have gone either way between a fumble and an interception depending on how the officials ruled it.

Whatever version of Nix showed up in the playoffs last season with the clutch factor and the poise before the ankle injury, that was not the same quarterback on Monday night. He looked rushed, impatient, and jittery. Plain and simple, he did not have a good football game.

Jaylen Waddle and Courtland Sutton disappeared

The highly anticipated debut of Jaylen Waddle, the big trade acquisition of the offseason, produced one catch for two yards. One catch for two yards. Denver could have found a fourth-string running back to produce that kind of stat line. Courtland Sutton wasn’t much better, finishing with just two catches for 11 yards. The pass catchers were invisible, and the reason starts up front.

The offensive line was the root of the problem

The Broncos offensive line was horrendous. Denver managed just 61 yards on the ground and allowed four sacks of Nix. The offensive tackles gave the quarterback nothing in terms of pass protection, and the running backs had nowhere to go.

The truth is, this wasn’t some all-time great defensive front they were facing. The Chiefs have good pass rushers, but this isn’t the ’85 Bears. A lot of the damage came from blitzing and disguises, as per usual when you face a Steve Spagnuolo defense. The offensive line’s failure was the downstream effect that produced losers like Nix, Waddle, and Sutton.

The defense might have been worse

The offense looked like a shell of itself, but the defense might have been just as bad, if not worse. Kansas City rushed for over 200 yards and two rushing touchdowns, with running back Kenneth Walker leading the way. Walker is a great back, but the Chiefs offensive line wasn’t even at full strength. Their star left tackle didn’t play, and they had an undrafted free agent filling in, and Patrick Mahomes off an ACL tear even took off for a big TD run.

For the Broncos defense to get gashed that badly against an incomplete offensive line is a damning indictment of how the unit performed.

Burn the tape and move on

The bottom line is this was the kind of game where you burn the tape, pretend like Week 1 is next week, and act like this never happened. Call it a preseason game if that helps. But Denver better hope this performance doesn’t come back to haunt them, because that was one of the worst games the Broncos have played under Sean Payton.