ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Since Peyton Manning joined the Denver Broncos, the only loss worse in margin than Sunday’s 43-21 defeat at New England was the 43-8 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII.

Perhaps there is something about the number 43 showing up on the Broncos’ worst days.

Reflecting on a surface common thread between the two defeats won’t help the Broncos. Instead, they spent the first few days of this week focused on why the Patriots manhandled them in all three phases, and trying to ensure that they don’t have a repeat at any point.

“Sometimes you’ve got to swallow that humble pie,” said wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders on Wednesday, echoing a sentiment shared by defensive end DeMarcus Ware three days earlier. “I think it makes the core of the group a lot stronger.”

And when the Broncos watched film of the loss to the Patriots, humility was in ample supply. No unit could claim a lack of culpability for the defeat. Blame was everywhere.

“When losing a football game, the key is how you respond to it,” Manning said. “I’ve seen teams lose games and they don’t recover from it for whatever reason. I think we are focused on trying to respond and play better.

“Can it be a good thing? Yeah, if you respond. I think you’d like not to get slapped in the face to get refocused. I think you would like to be focused every single week. If it happens, it’s about trying not to repeat it, trying to improve, and that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to learn from it and be better for it.”

And that led to Wednesday’s practice, which appeared to get the Broncos back.

“The focus was there,” Sanders said. “Everybody was communicating and things of that sort. So we kind of hit the restart button and (are) just trying to get this thing right again.”

The Broncos don’t want to completely mash the reset button. They have the AFC’s second-best record at 6-2, and they are the only team to defeat the Arizona Cardinals, who have the league’s best record. The eight teams Denver played have a collective winning percentage of .582; their next eight foes are just .417 combined.

With that discrepancy, the Broncos would seem to be in perfect position, having survived the most demanding part of their slate.

“A lot of teams would take that,” Sanders said, “but people are definitely disappointed around here in this locker room because we expect more of ourselves than that.”