The Denver Broncos' season came crashing down on Sunday, as they were blitzed by the Buffalo Bills in a 31-7 rout on Wild Card weekend. With this loss, a very promising and somewhat surprising season in Denver came to an end without a playoff win.

Coming into this game, there was a lot of buzz about the Broncos possibly having a chance to pull the upset over a Bills team that is viewed as a Super Bowl contender by many. However, that didn't play out on the field. After a long touchdown from Bo Nix to Troy Franklin gave the Broncos a 7-0 lead at the start of the game, the Bills blanked them with 31 unanswered points the rest of the way to coast to an easy win.

After the game, Broncos head coach Sean Payton took full responsibility for the loss, according to Chris Tomasson of The Denver Gazette.

“It starts with me. It's always a tough pill to swallow,” Payton said of the playoff loss, per Tomasson.

One of the defining sequences in the game came in the second quarter while the momentum was slipping away from the Denver offense. Payton looked to inject his team with some energy by called a fake punt, which worked to perfection. Punter Riley Dixon hit Marvin Mims for a first down on the trick play, and the Broncos were in business.

However, Payton curiously elected to punt on fourth-and-7 on the same drive when he could have either gone for it again or kicked a long field goal. After the game, Payton said that he did not regret the decision to punt it away even after burning the fake punt earlier in the drive, according to Zac Stevens of DNVR Sports.

The Broncos also missed a critical field goal before halftime that would have tied the game at 10 heading into the break and given them a little bit of momentum.

The game wing even further in Buffalo's favor in the second half with the Bills leading 13-7 but facing a fourth-and-1. Instead of kicking a field goal to go up by two scores, Sean McDermott elected to be aggressive and go for it. Josh Allen extended the play and then found Ty Johnson in the back of the end zone for a touchdown to make it a two-score game, and the Bills were off and running from there.

The Broncos still had a very successful season as a team that wasn't even supposed to make the playoffs in the AFC, but this is still a bitter end to the year for Payton and company.