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Sunday night’s AFC West showdown between the Chiefs and Broncos included a brief showdown between a pair of Broncos.

After Jordan Norwood took a punt off the face, leading to a turnover, another Broncos player gave Norwood a hard shove as he was leaving the field. It was cornerback Aqib Talib.

On Monday, coach Gary Kubiak downplayed the exchange.

“We compete at the highest level and our guys compete all the time — practice, game and those types of things,” Kubiak told reporters. “I see guys competing. Guys are upset. Jordan and Aqib are fine. I can tell you that. That’s not an issue. Obviously emotions get in the way and those are things that we have to talk about. We have to control our emotions. It’s a very competitive environment down there. There was no harm intended. I can tell you that. Those two guys are fine and we’ll continue to compete. . . .

“I want our guys to compete. They have to handle those situations better. I tell our guys, ‘We battle together, we don’t battle each other.’ They understand that, but we’re out there competing.”

Kubiak knows he’s juggling dry dynamite when it comes to Talib, a talented player with a wild streak that easily could be turned against anyone who calls him out publicly for misbehavior. Obviously, what he did was unacceptable, and Talib seems to understand that he was wrong.

“You have to be in pads and helmets to understand what is going on at the time,” Talib told reporters on Monday. “I apologized to [Jordan]. We’re all good. . . . We’re cool. It’s football. We’re brothers. We argue and we fight. We go to [battle] together and on Sunday we’re going to [battle] together again.”

Norwood apparently agrees.

“I think it’s already squashed,” he told reporters. “Me and Aqib sat down one-on-one and talked a little bit and made sure we were on the same page. He’s an emotional player. Everybody knows that and everybody sees that. He wants this team to win just like I do.”

The fact this this specific issue has been squashed doesn’t mean there won’t be more, especially if the defending Super Bowl champions continue to lose games and risk not making it to the playoffs. Indeed, as of right now they’re on the outside looking in.