KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Even if it officially no longer matters for the Broncos, Champ Bailey still matters.

The 2010 Broncos are beyond hopeless. The possibility Bailey may have played his last meaningful game for the team is a sad reality.

As has happened way too many times in his seven seasons with the team, Bailey was sensational from his left cornerback position, but the Broncos lost anyway, 10-6 to the Kansas City Chiefs on a can’t-feel-the-toes frigid Sunday afternoon at Arrowhead Stadium.

The loss eliminated the 3-9 Broncos from the postseason as they fell five games behind the 8-4 Chiefs with only four games remaining.

While the Chiefs moved to the brink of improving from 4-12 one year to division champs the next, the Broncos will miss the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season despite having Bailey on their side. He is eligible for free agency at season’s end, and after management pulled its contract proposal from him as an agreement was near a few weeks ago, Bailey may well have played his final game of consequence for the Broncos.

“I don’t want to be a distraction,” Bailey said while walking out of the losing team’s locker room. “If they come to me, I’ll be here. If not, I’ll go play somewhere else.”

With respect to the tenuous future of Broncos coach Josh McDaniels, he’s still four meaningless games away from completing only his second season. Bailey has been the best Broncos player since he was acquired in a trade for Clinton Portis before the 2004 season.

He made five Pro Bowls in his first six years with the Broncos, and ask K.C. receiver Dwayne Bowe if Bailey is deserving of making it six out of seven.

Bailey chased down the league’s most dangerous receiver from first play to last. Bowe had 13 touchdown catches in his previous seven games. When Randy Moss set an NFL record with 23 touchdown catches in 2007, he never had a seven-game stretch like that.

Two of those Bowe TDs came against Bailey during a 13-reception, 186-yard effort three weeks earlier. Almost all of Bowe’s stats in that game came after the Broncos had built leads of 21-0 after the first quarter and 35-0 late in the second.

With the game in the balance from the beginning until Kyle Orton’s desperate Hail Mary end Sunday, Bowe had zero catches for zero yards.

“Champ, he’s the best defender I ever went against,” Bowe said. “He told me I’m one of the greatest he ever went against, and we battled it out. I’ve got his vote and he’s got my vote.”

There must be some politician in everyone because, after giving it some thought, Bailey wasn’t ready to concede anything to a receiver who put up big numbers after 35-0.

“The last game, I’m not going to lie, I gave him all that stuff he had, by the way I played,” Bailey said. “I wasn’t happy.”

In fairness to Broncos management, negotiating a new contract with Bailey is tricky. He’s 32, and the deal that had been on the table before the Broncos backed off was for four years at north of $40 million.

There just aren’t any $10 million, 36-year-old cornerbacks in the league. Then again, there is just one Champ.

“That’s for after the year,” McDan iels said. “Today I thought he played his butt off.”

And not just Sunday. Bailey held Baltimore’s Anquan Boldin to one catch for 8 yards, Indianapolis’ Reggie Wayne to four catches for 65 yards, then threw a shutout at Bowe.

To think people around the country speculate Bailey has lost a step.

“Man, from what I’ve seen, he hasn’t lost nothing,” Broncos rookie cornerback Perrish Cox said. “Watching him over the years and now playing at his side, he’s still great. He’s still got the speed.”

Broncos defensive tackle Justin Bannan said: “I’ve played against Denver when I was on other teams, and he was always the No. 1 guy. In my eyes, it’s still that way. That guy is the best of the best. Today there was a player trying to challenge him and you saw. Locked him down.”

All too fittingly, though, Bailey played well in defeat Sunday. Besides shutting down Bowe, Bailey blitzed from his cornerback position and sacked Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel.

Bailey’s best season in terms of big plays was 2005, when his interception of Tom Brady in the end zone and 100-yard return was the difference in the Broncos’ only playoff victory of the past 12 years.

There have been more losses than wins in the five years since, a factor that shouldn’t be underestimated as Bailey is about to become free to decide his future.

“I hate it, hate to think about it,” Cox said. “He’s been my teammate-slash-coach. Basically, more my coach. When the game is going on the field, he helps me out a lot. If it’s over for him here, I still want to keep in touch with him because I still want to learn from him.”

Mike Klis: 303-954-1055 or mklis@denverpost.com