There are no school songs, pep rallies or bonfires. There is only in the playoffs or not in the playoffs.

That's the NFL experience.

"We have one game," Broncos wide receiver Brandon Stokley said. "One game to get in, and it has to be our best game. We're all out of time."

Yes, they are. Beyond the prospect of becoming the first team in the game's modern age to surrender a three-game lead in its division with three games to play, the Broncos now find themselves facing what quarterback Jay Cutler called "reality."

And the biting reality of professional Football is the postseason. Twelve teams get in, one team wins it all and everybody else picks through the rubble to figure out why it wasn't them.

That's it. To make it any more complicated than that is simply a disservice to the truth.

The Broncos win in San Diego, they're in. They lose, they're out.

Won't matter much how many points they scored in September, or how many guys will go to the Pro Bowl, or how many times they believed they should have won when they didn't.

And it's all important in a season in which the Broncos' youthful roster has learned many things about the ways and means of the league because this is often the most difficult lesson of all.

The Broncos have certainly needed the enthusiasm their young players brought to the field during the week and on game day. Two of their past three drafts have been fruitful affairs, with two of the picks - Cutler and Brandon Marshall - having already been selected to the Pro Bowl.

Those young players also have carried the team through a pile of injuries, lineup changes and another year of defensive tinkering to try to fill the gaps against the run and in the pass rush.

But their thank-you for all that will be far more muted if a trip to the playoffs isn't in the offing.

"I think everybody has to understand, momentum and all of that really won't matter right now," linebacker Jamie Winborn said. "This weekend, the best team will win. It's pretty simple.

"The best team on that day. That's kind of how you want it. But we can't give them freebie points, make mistakes or anything like that because if you don't win, tomorrow is next season."

So it is. And all involved should know the difference between 9-7 and 8-8 will be a ravine that's deep and wide.

Because one includes a playoff trip, a home game that would bring Indianapolis - a team that currently has an eight-game winning streak - to Denver. (And the debate on how the battered Broncos would fare in that endeavor is certainly for another day.)

But to build for the future in the NFL, there is a need to experience in the present. A team has to be in a playoff game before it learns how to win one; leaders have to experience difficult weeks before they can learn how to show others how to get through them.

That, too, is the reality of the NFL.

And, after all is said and done Sunday, the Broncos will be left with the season they have made for themselves, with the next game in January or September.

Their choice.

INFOBOX 1

BREAK IT DOWN

When running back P.J. Pope, who was averaging 7 yards a carry at the time, left Sunday's game because of an injured hamstring, the Broncos again were searching for ways to create matchups without their usual running game.

Especially in the scoring zone.

On Denver's first possession after Pope left the game in the first quarter, the Broncos, facing a first-and-goal from the 9-yard line, threw two passes that put them in a third-and-goal from the 5.

The Broncos were in a three-receiver look - with Brandon Marshall to the right and Eddie Royal and Brandon Stokley to the left, bunched with tight end Daniel Graham in a triangle just off left tackle Ryan Clady's outside shoulder. With Tatum Bell in the backfield, the Bills were in a five-defensive back (nickel) package.

Stokley and Graham ran routes into the end zone, taking defensive backs with them, while Royal cut across the middle. Bell looped out of the backfield to the left, and the only Bills defender available in coverage was end Copeland Bryan.

Bryan saw Bell easily was going to get past him, so he shoved Bell to the ground before the ball arrived.

Referee Terry McAulay announced it was not pass interference because Bell was behind the line of scrimmage.

But it's the kind of play, using motion and formations, the Broncos will have to make in the scoring zone against San Diego to make some room for Cutler to work without the benefit of a reliable, between-the-tackles runner.

INFOBOX 2

MATCH GAME: Broncos CB Champ Bailey vs. Chargers WR Vincent Jackson

These two might not see each other the whole game, but Jackson is powering the Chargers' passing game these days.

He has compiled 348 receiving yards in the past three games - with two touchdowns. At 6-foot-5, 241 pounds, Jackson always is a difficult matchup and has a size advantage against the defensive back assigned to cover him.

Jackson often lines up on the offensive right, which would put him across from Bailey. Bailey is not 100 percent, having returned from a groin injury that kept him out of seven games, but he is strong enough to engage Jackson and still keep himself in position to play the ball.

Jackson routinely shields smaller cornerbacks from the ball. But Bailey doesn't often allow receivers to position themselves between him and the ball because he is strong enough, good enough with his hands and savvy enough to keep it from happening.

INFOBOX 3

GET IT DONE

The Chargers have the 31st-ranked pass defense in the league, and Jay Cutler is one of three quarterbacks to have topped 300 passing yards against San Diego this season.

Cutler threw for 350 yards and four touchdowns in Denver's Week 2 win. But without a running game to slow the San Diego pass rush, the Broncos will have to protect Cutler to secure the playoff spot.

The Bills repeatedly found room to get to Cutler in the middle of the field. And he was slow to get up after a third-quarter sack, when the Bills used a three-man front and blitzed two linebackers in the center of the field. Center Casey Wiegmann had to pick up one, stopping Paul Posluszny, but Kawika Mitchell came free, bowled over running back Selvin Young - he likely was playing with a ruptured disk in his neck at that point - and sacked Cutler hard.

Cutler briefly stayed down on all fours but eventually, and slowly, got up. It was the kind of hit the Broncos can't afford to allow with the postseason on the line.

The Bills came hard up the middle on the Broncos' final play of the game, and Cutler was rushed as he tried to get the ball to Brandon Stokley, a fairly remarkable throw in the face of such pressure.

INFOBOX 4

Numbers game

The Broncos have scored only 13 rushing touchdowns this season. If they don't produce more than one at San Diego, this will be only the seventh season in coach Mike Shanahan's tenure they have had 14 rushing touchdowns or fewer. They have missed the playoffs five of the previous six times that happened.

Rush Year TDs Team leader TDs

*2001 7 Mike Anderson 4

*2007 10 Travis Henry 4

*2006 12 Mike Bell 8

*1999 13 Olandis Gary 7

2004 13 Reuben Droughns 6

x-2008 13 Peyton Hillis 5

*1995 14 Terrell Davis 7

INFOBOX 5

HOT SPOT

Some Broncos might not like Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, but that doesn't change the fact he's more than good enough to beat them. Rivers has totaled nine touchdown passes in the past three games - and thrown only one interception.

In two of those games - wins against Oakland and Tampa Bay - he averaged more than 9 yards per attempt.

The Broncos made only one sack - for all of 5 yards - against a Bills offense that had surrendered 35 sacks entering the game and had allowed three sacks in the past seven games combined.

If Rivers gets that kind of time to look over the Broncos defense, they will be planning for next year next week.