The Denver defense stifled the Patriots run in the AFC championship game. In spite of missing Derek Wolfe, Von Miller, and various other pieces on defense. This year they also have a physical CB in Talib as well as TJ Ward that are not afraid to stick there nose in and stop the run. And somehow New England's rookie line is going to run all over them? Expert analysis from Football Outsiders that take into account various other components have Denver as the number 1 defensive line. The one aspect I am confident about tomorrow is the Patriots will struggle to run the football.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/dl
First of all, welcome to the board, and thank you for attempting to take a fairly low-key and reasonable approach to the discussion. It's always great to have rational discussion with fans from opposing teams - it happens far too seldom. Second, while we are "fanatics" and that generally encompasses loathing for our rivals, Denver deserves tremendous credit for how they have performed this year, and for being as complete a team on both sides of the ball as we have seen in the NFL to date. So please take all of the discussion within that context.
I am a big Terrance Knighton fan, and if he hits the FA market in 2015 he will be one of my favorite targets for the Pats - it would only be "fair", after losing Talib to your team . As Jay mentioned, I think we would be huge fans of him if he were on our team, and he has done an outstanding job. Running against him will be a challenge. I am very intrigued to see how our rookie center, Bryan Stork, handles Knighton. Stork has the size and physicality to match up well against big DTs, something that Ryan Wendell struggled with. I like Wendell and Connolly much better as pulling guards. Knighton, Sylvester Williams (a player who I liked a lot in 2012 and mocked to the Pats several times, when he was flying under the radar) and Derek Wolfe are tough unit to run against, but I think that Denver's LB corps is vulnerable to the run IF the Pats' OL can open some holes. I also think it's unlikely that our OL will simply overpower your line, so the key will be using some of Denver's aggressiveness against them. Easier said than done, obviously.
I doubt that we'll "run wild" against Denver, but if we can create some running plays and set up play action, I think it will open up a lot for Brady compared to what he experienced in last year's AFCCG. The Denver D did indeed take away the run in that game, to their credit, but in that case that was probably their main objective going into the game given how the Pats' offense had to rely on Blount and the running game down the stretch in the absence of Gronk and any viable receiving threats other than Julian Edelman. This is a drastically different offense (with Gronk back plus Brandon LaFall and Tim Wright in addition to Edelman), and it will be a different challenge to stop the run without selling out against the passing attack. Last year's team had no vertical threat to stretch the field, allowing Denver to stack the run without much fear of getting burned. This year's team has much more ability to push the attack down the field. It will be a very different challenge for you guys.
I make no predictions, but I will be interested to see how this one plays out.
