Kareem Jackson’s message to Broncos teammates: “Everything we want is still in front of us.”

The critics might be counting the Broncos out following their prime time flop against the Chiefs, but the mathematical reality of the divisional standings has not.

And there’s still belief within the Broncos locker room that this team has what it takes to break the franchise’s six-year playoff drought.

Safety Kareem Jackson delivered that message following Sunday night’s 22-9 loss to Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium, which dropped Denver (6-6) to the bottom of a tight AFC West with five weeks remaining in the regular season.

“I just let the guys know that everything we want is still in front of us,” Jackson said. “We’ve got five games left, but most of those are division games. Everything we want is right in front of us. We’ve just got to take it a day at a time, a practice at a time, and we’ve got to play some great football moving forward.”

On Sunday, All-Pro quarterback Patrick Mahomes was held to a career-low 57.2 rating, while the dynamic tandem of Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill had just five combined catches for 49 yards. Denver limited Kansas City to just one touchdown, 89 yards rushing and 267 total yards, but that didn’t mean much to Jackson after the Broncos lost for the 12th straight time to K.C.

The safety lamented “there were a lot of plays we left out there” that could’ve enabled the Broncos defense to turn the tide amid poor performances by Denver’s offense and special teams.

“There’s no moral victories in this game,” Jackson said. “The only thing that counts is wins and losses. Looking back at it, that’s all we’ll look at. It doesn’t matter what you held a team to (yardage-wise) if you lost the game… Defensively, we’ve got to do more. Keep them out of the end zone and hold them to three.”

Still, Sunday’s performance was another positive step for a unit with four rookie impact players (cornerback Pat Surtain, inside linebacker Baron Browning, outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper and dime back Caden Sterns) slotting next to a collection of newcomers (linebackers Kenny Young and Stephen Weatherly) and veterans (Jackson and fellow safety Justin Simmons).

“Those rookies are playing at a high level right now,” Jackson said. “Pat is playing at an extremely high level (with four interceptions), Caden’s doing some great thing for us, Baron, Cooper a lot of other guys. Those guys have hit the ground running and they fit right in.”

But the Broncos know they need more big plays in order to run the table in December and get themselves ahead in the wild card picture, where Denver currently sits in a logjam amid the likes of the Steelers, Colts, Raiders, Browns and Dolphins. The Broncos rank in the bottom third of football with 14 takeaways, tied for seventh with 11 interceptions but next-to-last with three fumble recoveries.

Increasing those takeaways will be critical down the stretch, especially as the Broncos close the season with divisional games at the Raiders, at the Chargers and then home vs. Kansas City.

“When it becomes a low-scoring game, we’ve got to keep it a low-scoring game, and we’ve got to find ways to (force more turnovers),” coach Vic Fangio said. “We had the one takeaway (Sunday), and we had a chance at another one that they didn’t reverse (on review). We have to find a way to get more takeaways.”

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