For the last few games Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has been hoping he'd see his team do one simple thing that has eluded them in recent weeks. He wanted them to finally put together a complete game for 60-minutes.
 Brady was pleased with his team's effort during their 41-23 win against the Broncos on Sunday. (FILE:Icon/SMI) |
On Sunday, the veteran quarterback said they did just that during their 41-23 win over the Broncos in Denver.
"It was a good day for us. A very emotional game," said Brady, who finished 23-of-34 for 320 yards and 2 touchdowns. "The place was really rocking early. I thought we showed some mental toughness, we really fought for 60-minutes, and really played really good complimentary football. It's what we needed."
The Broncos came after New England early, driving right down the field on their opening possession and punching it in with a 9-yard run by Tim Tebow to grab an early 6-0 lead thanks to a botched extra point.
However, New England would answer with two big plays on their opening drive. It started when Brady connected with Aaron Hernandez for a 46 yard catch and run on their third offensive play of the game, with Hernandez getting sprung thanks to good blocking from Chad Ochocinco. He was rewarded two plays later with a 33-yard touchdown pass, putting the Patriots on top 7-6 with 7:24 to go in the first quarter.
But Denver would come right back, going 82 yards in just four plays thanks to a 29 yard run by Willis McGahee, a 22-yard reception to Demaryius Thomas, and a 32 yard touchdown run by Lance Ball to put Denver back up 13-7 with 5:01 to go in the quarter.
They added a field goal to start the quarter, but from there Brady and the Patriots ran off 27 unanswered points, 20 of which came in the second quarter and put the Patriots in the drivers seat for the rest of the game.
Brady closed out the final quarter a perfect 5-for-5 for 98 yards, which was the second time this season he's had a perfect fourth quarter.
The impressive part of Sunday's game was simply the way they never seemed to panic despite Denver getting off to a fast start. Brady said after the game that they've continued to gain confidence each week, and when they do get things going, they feel like they can play with anybody.
"Well it's an ongoing process," said Brady. "You gain confidence over the course of the season when you win games on the road, and we've proven we can do that. We've proven we can come back in games. Even when we've lost, we've been in it until the very end. We feel that we can compete with anybody and certainly when we play well we feel like we have a decent margin of error out there.
"I thought we played well for sixty minutes today, and anytime you win by 18 points on the road it's a good thing."
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