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New England-Denver: 9 Takeaways From The AFC Championship Game

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The Denver Broncos are on their way to the Super Bowl for the seventh time in franchise history, and Peyton Manning is going for the third time in his illustrious career. The Broncos dismantled the New England Patriots in a 26-16 win. Here’s the Notebook Nine takeaways from the New England-Denver game for the AFC Championship.

    • *We’ll begin with the quarterbacks, of whom the story revolved around. Peyton Manning was nothing short of fantastic, hitting 32/43 for 400 yards and seeming to connect on every throw of real consequence. I didn’t think Tom Brady played a bad game—24/38 for 277 yards, and like Manning, no mistakes. But Brady did miss some throws down the field, and playing above-average wasn’t going to cut it on a day when his counterpart was locked in.


    • *Before anyone in the media comes down too hard on Brady, they might want to consider the vast difference in the receivers each was throwing to. Wes Welker was probably Denver’s fourth option in the passing game. If Welker were still in New England, he’d be #1. There’s no comparison of a Bronco cast that has Daryius Thomas, Julius Thomas, Eric Decker and Welker, against the Patriot corps led by Julian Edelman, a converted defensive back.
    • *But if I’m a Peyton Manning fan, I look at the above argument and say that this is just what goes around, comes around. When Brady’s Patriots beat Manning’s Colts in the early ‘00s repeatedly, the Pats had a decisively superior cast, and that didn’t stop the media from taking the results and using them as a club to beat Manning over the head. Maybe the real lesson here is that these are just two elite quarterbacks and whichever team loses the head-to-head game should look elsewhere in assigning blame. That would seem an obvious point, but in today’s media world apparently not.


    • *A disappointing failure of the New England supporting cast was the complete lack of a ground game. No one expected LeGarrette Blount to run over Denver the way he did Indianapolis in the divisional playoff game. But six yards rushing? That’s two weeks in a row the Broncos have shut down a running game that was churning on all cylinders. The season-long rush defense numbers for Denver aren’t very good, but we see in the NFL that current form matters most. That’s something to keep in mind when evaluating the Bronco chances against Marshawn Lynch and the Seattle Seahawks.
    • *Even given those results, I still felt Patriot head coach Bill Belichick abandoned the run too quickly. New England only ran the ball 16 times total, just five by Blount. I know they fell behind, but it wasn’t until the third quarter that the game started to get out of hand. New England should have had 15-16 rush attempts in the first half alone. They had no choice but to try and establish it.
    • *But one place I would not have gone to the run if I were Belichick was a two-point conversion with 3:07 to play that gave New England a chance to cut the lead to eight points and keep it a game. The Patriots did a standard handoff to Blount and it was stuffed. It’s one thing to make the run a vital part of your offense. But when the season is on the line I want Tom Brady with the football. At the very least, fake a pass and run a quick inside handoff.
    • *A huge loss for New England came early in the second quarter when Patriot corner Aqib Talib left the game. I was watching with a friend and immediately noted to him that when Talib left last year’s AFC title game against the Baltimore Ravens, Anquan Boldin suddenly went off. Sure enough, Demaryius Thomas, not heard from through the first quarter, ended up with seven catches for 143 yards.


  • *I thought it was significant when New England drove into the red zone late in the first half and had to settle for a field goal, cutting the lead to 10-3. Not only did they lose four points, but finishing the drive with a touchdown probably knocks another 60-90 seconds off the clock and doesn’t leave Manning enough time. At this point I noted to my friend that Denver got the ball to start the second half and said that New England could be in a 20-3 hole by the time Brady saw the ball again. Sure enough, that’s what happened.
  • *A competent Denver ground game, Moreno and Ball on the tag team for 102 yards on 26 carries. That’s just enough running to keep a defense honest.

AFC Championship Game Preview: New England-Denver

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The AFC Championship Game that CBS executives were dreaming of arrives on Sunday afternoon in the Rocky Mountains, as the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots will settle a Super Bowl berth (3 PM ET, CBS). Here’s our Notebook Nine points to take into the much-anticipated New England-Denver battle…

    • *Can we just begin with some real gratitude that we get to watch Peyton Manning and Tom Brady go at it in a game of this magnitude at this stage of their careers. It’s like getting to watch Larry Bird and Magic Johnson go after each other one final time. I suppose we don’t know that it’s Peyton and Brady’s last go-around in the playoffs, but the odds are it is, and we know it in advance. Let’s make sure to appreciate the moment.

    • *While most media focus logically focuses on the history between the quarterbacks, mostly compiled when Manning was in Indianapolis (where all three previous playoff meetings happened), these two franchises are not without a little history themselves. New England came to Denver as a defending AFC champ in 1986 and lost. The Patriots made the same trip as two-time defending Super Bowl champ in 2005 and lost. Denver paid a visit east in 2011 and lost a game that proved to be the final start of Tim Tebow’s NFL career.
    • *Las Vegas is strongly in Denver’s corner for this one, as the line has nudged to five points. Combined with an Over/Under of 55, that plays out to a score of 30-25, which sounds close enough. But for a game like this to get not only beyond the key number of three, but another important threshold in four (scores like 31-27 or 27-23 are not uncommon), indicates strong market support for the Broncos.
    • *The fact these teams have elite offenses (Denver is 1st in the NFL in points scored, New England 3rd) and future Hall of Fame quarterbacks obscures that they’ve gotten there in different ways. Manning has had the elite year, with 55 touchdown passes. Brady, thanks mainly to big injury hits to his receiving corps, ranks in the middle of the league in both yards-per-pass and completion percentage. It’s the Patriot running game that has lifted this offense, something that will come as no surprise to any fan who watched the beatdown they put on Indianapolis last Saturday night.

  • *The superiority New England has shown all year on the defensive side is being overlooked. The Patriots rank 10th in points allowed, while the Broncos are 22nd. While Denver played in a tougher AFC West, that produced both wild-card teams, New England got a tougher NFC draw, playing the tams of the NFC South, while Denver was able to clean up on the NFC East.
  • *New England’s defense is keyed by getting pressure on the quarterback, where a four-man front led by ends Chandler Jones and Rob Ninkovich are fifth in the league in sacks. This goes head-on with Denver’s offensive line, an area I thought would be a weakness, but has proven to be a great strength—the Bronco front five has been the best in the NFL keeping their quarterback outright. If we know who wins this battle, we probably know who wins the game.
  • *Are the Patriots going to have problems in the red zone? Normally running teams can cash in their chances, especially when they have a ruthlessly efficient legend at quarterback. But the absence of tight end Rob Gronkowski is big at any spot in the field and particularly so when it’s down close. Let’s say the Pats get in the red zone four times, but settle for field goals twice. In a game like this, that can be the difference.
  • *Where does New England head coach deploy his difference-making corner Aqib Talib? Last week it was easy—Talib neutralized Indy wideout T.Y. Hilton and the Colts had no other consistent threats. That’s not going to be the case on Sunday, where Peyton distributes the ball among Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker and Wes Welker at wideout, and Julius Thomas at tight end.
  • *That brings us to another strength-on-strength battle, and it’s the ability of the Patriot secondary to force incompletions (they’re 4th in the NFL at completion percentage allowed) and Peyton’s terrific efficiency. New England won this battle in their regular season meeting, forcing Manning into a 19/36 night, and they won the game. Can Belichick’s defense pull it off one more time?

I’m really torn on this game, so when it comes to picking with the points, I’d have to grab New England (+5). I’m also leaning Patriots, ever so slightly, for the outright win. I’m just concerned about Denver’s ability to make big plays when they need to—or to avoid bad plays. They nearly let San Diego back in the game, and of course no one has forgotten the Baltimore game last year. Please note that the concern lies more on defense then with Manning.

There’s also the issue of coaching. John Fox is a solid football coach, whom almost any NFL team should be happy to have in charge. One of those teams would not be the New England Patriots, who have one of the all-time greats on the sidelines. Unless Manning opens up and blows the Pats out of the water, this game might end up being decided by who makes a better in-game adjustment on some key area. I’m taking Belichick.