DENVER -- In many ways this was the third strike in the Denver Broncos’ quest to turn talent into a championship.

Sunday’s 24-13 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC divisional-round game in Sports Authority Field at Mile High will certainly sting for some time. Many Broncos openly labeled this a Super-Bowl-or-bust season as far back as April. And now that Denver can't win the Super Bowl, it is left with the other half of that equation.

"The first round of the playoffs turned into the last game of the season," cornerback Aqib Talib said. "That’s as bad as it gets."

The then top-seed Broncos first swing and miss was the double-overtime loss, at home in the divisional round, to the Baltimore Ravens to end the 2012 season. Then, there was last season’s 35-point loss in the Super Bowl, where the Broncos carried the highest-scoring offense in league history into the game. And now there's Sunday’s loss, as the No. 2 seed and coming off a bye. The team was as healthy as it had been since mid-October.

That’s three strikes and whether or not anybody is out remains to be seen in the coming days. Executive vice president of football operations/general manager John Elway, never one to sit on his hands having traded one Tim Tebow in the wake of a playoff blowout, has a vast array of questions the answer.

He can start with the fact the Broncos were loaded with high-profile, highly-paid talent, with stars -- a league-best nine Pro Bowl selections -- and they didn’t get upper-tier play from most of those players Sunday. And it started with quarterback Peyton Manning.

Manning finished 26-of-46 for 211 yards and a 1-yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas, which closed the first drive of the game. Demaryius Thomas finished with 59 yards receiving to go with two drops, Julius Thomas had 53 yards receiving, Emmanuel Sanders had 46 yards receiving and Wes Welker had one catch.

DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller did not sack Colts quarterback Andrew Luck and neither did any of the other Broncos’ players in a defense that had received the majority of the offseason attention and signing bonus money last March. Sacks may be overrated, but they are only overrated if there is pressure and there wasn't nearly enough of that either.

"We lost the game, we didn’t play how we should have played, how we needed to play to win the game," Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall said. "And that’s why we lost."

"That’s football, that’s what you sign up for," Manning said. "And I guess if you don’t want to deal with disappointment, you shouldn’t play, you don’t play at all. We all know what we want, we want to keep playing, you want to win your last game."

The Broncos will now wrestle with the fact that seasons of 13, 13 and 12 regular-season wins, of three consecutive AFC West titles under the current regime -- Elway as chief football decision-maker and John Fox as coach -- have ended on the bright stage of the playoffs with the team having had nothing close to their best effort.

It’s one thing to lose because time ran out, or some other team lifted itself a little higher. It’s another to sit in stunned silence in a locker room following a loss that bore little resemblance to the best of what the Broncos have offered over the past three seasons.

Did the Colts have a good plan? Yes. Did they execute that plan? Yes. Were they better from player one to 53 than the Broncos? You would be hard-pressed to find a personnel executive in the league that would say that.

Yet Sunday, it didn’t matter as the Colts were essentially in control from the moment they tied it at 7-7 with 14 minutes, 14 seconds remaining in the second quarter. They had five possessions at least eight plays, two of more than 10 plays, against a Broncos defense that led the league in forcing three-and-outs.

The Broncos’ offense opened its day with a seven-play, 68-yard touchdown drive and never put together another touchdown drive. Manning looked out of sorts as the Colts constructed their defense to force him to throw the ball outside the numbers and up the sidelines.

"We were able to put the game on Peyton Manning," Colts defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois said. "You never know Peyton to overthrow guys, he usually puts the ball right on the numbers and when he kept overthrowing it, we knew we had him. We kept saying that’s blood in the water."

Manning was 2-for-12 for 49 yards on throws at least 15 yards downfield, according to ESPN Stats & Information tracking. He tied a season-high with eight overthrown passes Sunday, all of which came on throws at least 15 yards downfield.

So, now the questions come, none bigger than at quarterback and coach.

Manning, still smarting less than an hour after the loss, said he had "to process" what happened against the Colts. He could not definitively say he would be back for 2015, as he had said on Christmas Eve as the regular season drew to a close.

The Broncos, and Manning, have to decide if he’s up to the challenge physically for another season and if improving the team’s offensive line in the coming offseason with the same zeal it tried to improve the defense last offseason will make a difference. Manning has two years remaining on his contract, but most of his guaranteed money has been paid and the team faces minimal salary cap implications if he does choose to retire. Manning said, as he always does, he will take a hard look at his play.

"I’m not smart enough to answer every single question about reasons for things," Manning said. "I think I’ve always taken an accurate look, a fair evaluation of myself, I think I’m as honest with myself as anybody else, probably as critical of myself as anybody else and didn’t play well enough today and didn’t play well enough consistently in the second half of the season, especially in the games we lost."

There was a report before Sunday’s game kicked off that if the Broncos lost the game, Fox would be available to other teams even though he just signed a contract extension before this season. Fox was asked following the game how much responsibility should fall on his shoulders after the loss.

"Well, I take all of it, I’m a head coach, the buck stops here," Fox said. "That’s just the reality of what we do."

On his future, Fox said: "I don’t make those decisions, I don’t control that. My intentions are to be a Denver Bronco and have been since I got here."

So, in the end as the Broncos players walked up the tunnel and into the night, plenty of disappointment and questions in tow, they were left with the bottom line.

"We feel like we have a good team," defensive tackle Terrance Knighton said. "We feel like there’s a lot of talent with good coaches and that we’re good enough to win a championship. But we didn’t get it done. And we all know this team won’t look the same next year."