Covering another losing Broncos locker room

I have covered 8 home Broncos games in 2008. After a 3-0 home start this year, I was loving it: guys were happy, talkative and sticking around long enough so I could grab an interview for my 5:40pm live shot in the locker room.

The last few losses haven’t quite been the same.

The Broncos have lost 3 of their last 4 home games – Dolphins, Raiders and now the Bills. Losing locker rooms are never easy, but I do give a lot of players credit, as many of them will face the music and own up to whatever mistakes they made during those losses.

After an opening drive touchdown, I thought for sure I’d be dealing with a winning post game group after this last game against Buffalo. Not so much.

The locker room opens up after Mike Shanahan finishes talking at the podium, which is in a different room underneath Invesco Field. Once coach is done, they open the doors and about 30-40 of us descend upon the players. Reporters, photographers, engineers, anyone with a credential (and someone without – more on that in a sec).

Everyone kind of splits up and looks around. There wasn’t a lot to choose from this week as a lot of guys took the chance while the lockerrom was closed to get showered, dressed and scram.
But there were still a few we could gaggle around. We started with Brandon Stokley. The last two Denver plays on offense came his way – one went over his head, the other he dropped. He made a great comment about how there was no reason for him to drop it and that’s why he gets paid – to catch and hold on to the ball. Ownership – I like it.

From there we grabbed Tatum Bell, Ebenezer Ekuban, Jamie Winborn and DJ Williams. DJ told reporters he was only going to talk for 30 seconds. Don’t tell him, but we got him for about 2 1/2 minutes.

I was hoping DJ would talk just a little longer because I wanted to talk to him for my live interview. Unfortunately as made it clear he was done with questions, Rod was saying “and now let’s go to the locker room at Invesco Field where Susie Wargin is standing by.” I could only stand and babble a few things. Thankfully, the guys at the station have been doing this long enough, they had some sound bites from earlier ready to go just in case a live guest didn’t pan out.

Needless to say, the locker room was pretty quiet, except for one instance: some young guy with a pass around his neck was escorted out for taking pictures with his cell phone. Not sure what he was taking pictures of, but the PR staff was not happy with him. I didn’t recognize him and he didn’t have a media credential for the locker room, obviously he slipped in with whatever credential he did have.

Word to the wise this holiday season: don’t try and pass yourself off as something you’re not!