DENVER (AP) – The point spread – “Indianapolis -10” – pretty much says it all.

Outside of the Denver locker room, the Broncos aren’t expected to do much more than show up for their playoff game against the Colts.

They don’t care, though. For most of the last two months, they’ve been counted out, and yet here they are, back in the playoffs, which is where they expected to be all along.

“This is the time the good players step up and play ball,” receiver Rod Smith proclaimed after a win Sunday over the watered-down Colts set up the Broncos for a playoff rematch.

Good players. The Broncos (10-6) have plenty of them and when they all showed up to play this season, this team looked like a Super Bowl contender. They’re Super Bowl long shots now, thanks to a 5-5 finish that included two wins at the end of the season that they needed just to qualify for the AFC’s final wild-card spot.

It marked a successful close to an inconsistent season that almost always went the way Jake Plummer was going. Plummer finished with 27 touchdown passes to tie a franchise record, but also shared the league lead with 20 interceptions.

Now, the task is to defeat the Colts and avenge a 41-10 loss in last year’s playoffs that sat hard with Denver players through most of the offseason.

“It took me a long time to get over that game,” linebacker Al Wilson said.

Instead of dwelling on that loss, the Broncos probably will focus on their two victories over the Colts in the last 13 months. And while it’s hard to gain too much confidence from the 33-14 victory Sunday against Indy’s backups, Denver’s 31-17 win in Indy during Week 15 last season was much more impressive.

“We know what it takes to go over there and win,” coach Mike Shanahan said.

They’ll need Plummer to avoid errors against a defense that ranked 29th in the league, but was successful nonetheless because it created 36 turnovers. Only Carolina and Buffalo had more.

They’ll need a good running game from the offensive line and the 1-2 combo of Reuben Droughns and emerging rookie Tatum Bell. In the win last year, Denver controlled the ball for a team record 44:58 and proved that the best way – maybe the only way – to shut down Peyton Manning is to keep him off the field.

They’ll need Champ Bailey to play like the franchise cornerback he was touted as when the Broncos traded Clinton Portis to get him in the aftermath of last year’s playoff debacle. They’ll need the other cornerback, Kelly Herndon, along with the rest of the secondary, to play just as well to contain Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne and Brandon Stokley, who became the first receiving trio in NFL history to catch 10 touchdowns each.

They’ll need to make plays on defense. The Broncos finished the season ranked fourth in overall defense, but created only 20 turnovers (29th in the league) and had more than two sacks in only six games. That’s why the defense never seemed as dominant as the yardage statistics suggested.

“We feel if we play our game, we’ll beat anybody,” Wilson said.

The question is, What, exactly, is Denver’s game?

Is it the kind the Broncos put together the last two weeks – efficient, few penalties, fewer turnovers – that helped them win two games by a combined score of 70-30?

Or is it the team with the quarterback who led the league with 20 interceptions, and the team that scored touchdowns only 45.3 percent of the time it got inside the 20 – the fifth-worst rate in the league? That’s the team that lost six times this season.

“Do you think that’s good? Ten points? Do you have a bookie?” Shanahan jokingly asked when told about the point spread. “We’ve been bigger underdogs before. We know we’re playing a good football team in their backyard.”