Tom Brady is 171-for-235 with 1,771 yards, 17 touchdowns and zero interceptions playing against Denver defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio.
Well that is an absolutely terrifying stat. JDR should do something different this game. Very different. Starting with not being awful.
I've tempered my expectations since Gronk got blasted in his knee this season, yet I feel the same way about the AFC Championship against Denver that I did the Divisional Round versus Indy - cool & confident.
They'll be a lot of blow hard Denver fans that will be saying a lot of stuff this week like "We're gonna' destroy the Pats!!" But if you ask me, they're all scared, and they all should be. If our team was their team, and theirs was ours, I would be.
Peyton Manning's offense isn't anything new under the sun and Belichick has handled it over and over and over again, whether it's been in white or in orange.
And Denver's defense is pathetic against a quality quarterback. We forget that (us, media people, Denver fans, etc) because there aren't a lot of truly quality quarterbacks in the league, and even fewer that the Broncos have faced, but I think Tom Brady is going to have a great game.
I think he'll at least duplicate his performance in the 2nd half of our regular season meeting, only possibly for the entire game. If that's the case, it's a blow out.
Bottom line: Our offense will move the ball and score. Our defense will limit Peyton and hopefully get at least 1 INT (seems a given with us against Manning).
If we avoid coughing up the ball again three times in the first few minutes, I really see a decisive victory very much like 2012.
Don't want to jynx anything but that's just what I see happening.
The AFC only has 2 elite quarterbacks right now, so most AFC teams won't have played many elite QBs this season, that's just the way it goes. I think you kind of hit the nail on the head for both sides though, even though you surely were only looking at it from a Pats stand point.
When we were still undefeated, our expectations were super bowl or bust. Clearly we're not invincible, but we're still pretty good, and so I would imagine a lot of Broncos fans, myself included, are confident in our team that we'll get to the Super Bowl. As you should be with the Patriots. I've said it already, but the Broncos and Patriots, for as much as our fan bases can hate each other, are without question the two best teams in the AFC this season, and really last season too. Screw the Ravens.
Every team game plans differently for different games, and the result is that you can't always judge one matchup and use that judgment for how a team will come out and play next time. I wouldn't judge the Pats by their loss to the Jets or the string of near losses they had to teams like the Browns just as much as I wouldn't judge them by their recent blowout victories.
I would be cautious in judging Denver by the last few games simply because, even though many Pats fans constantly refuse to admit it, our offense is pretty damn good. I don't care who it was against, because they carried on the stats throughout the season. Prolonged offensive success doesn't just disappear. Opponents can game plan successfully to minimize it, and that's when they beat the Broncos, but to discount their offense would be setting yourself up for a disappointment.
The things that terrify me about this game are that we're going against the best coach in the game, and an elite QB. That's pretty much it, but then again, that's all you really need to win anyway. If anyone can come up with a great strategy to shut us down, it's Belichick, I just wouldn't be SO confident that it's a foregone conclusion.
Peyton's been playing great, and had we somehow blown the game today, it'd be very hard to have put it on him. I've been loving all the talk about "he's due to choke" and "he can't win big games" because from my experience watching the NFL, once talk like that heats up enough, players tend to come through and win games. That's what I'm banking on next Sunday, and I feel good knowing we're playing at home with the one-and-done monkey off our back.
It's the final 4 teams, and even though it's just coach-speak, you know what they say...you don't get here by accident.
Anything can happen and I think it'll be a very close game throughout. I think Peyton plays solid, I think our defense surprises you, and I think our offense scores enough points to win the game. BUT, to "guarantee" a victory, or pretend I'm not nervous about playing the Patriots would be stupid.
It's going to be a good game, one of our teams will lose, and whichever team wins better win the Super Bowl, because I won't be able to handle watching Pete Carroll's smug face hoist a Lombardi.
This post was longer than I intended it to be and kind of all over the place, I just realized. Oh well, that's what playoff football will do to ya.
