"Nothing brings a quarterback into conversations around the office coffee machine quite like defeat. The Broncos easily could have beaten the Tennessee Titans on a warm, sunny September Sunday at LP Field. The eerie silence in the dark, postgame visitors' locker room all but shouted they should have won.

And perhaps they would have beaten Tennessee had the Broncos not wasted a first-and-goal-at-the-2 opportunity in the fourth quarter, a do-or-die chance that expired when the Titans' defense stuffed running back Willis McGahee on a fourth- and-1 plunge up the gut.

But the Broncos didn't win. They lost a rock-'em, sock-'em, smack-talking, pad-popping, football scrum 17-14. Orton was the quarterback of the losing team."