The 2013/14 AFC Championship Game: NE at DEN

[captain stone]

I watched some of the first 2 quarters on the NFLN, and I still won't forgive Arrington for not
intercepting the Fivehead on that duck he tossed. He never even feckin turned to look for it.

Had the Pats taken care of business in Miami, they would've hosted the AFCC in Foxborough,
where the temps were in the 20s. Even without Gronk, I still believe they would've beaten the
Donkeys. But you know what, I'm cool with the way the 2013 season ended, because we weren't
going to defeat Seattle anyway and PayaTon became a sub-500 SB QB with one of the very worst
performances in league championship history.

I just hope history doesn't repeat itself tomorrow (Pats not hosting Denver in AFCC), but I'm afraid
that's exactly what's going to happen.

 

[patssb0103]

I watched some of the first 2 quarters on the NFLN, and I still won't forgive Arrington for not
intercepting the Fivehead on that duck he tossed. He never even feckin turned to look for it.

Had the Pats taken care of business in Miami, they would've hosted the AFCC in Foxborough,
where the temps were in the 20s. Even without Gronk, I still believe they would've beaten the
Donkeys. But you know what, I'm cool with the way the 2013 season ended, because we weren't
going to defeat Seattle anyway and PayaTon became a sub-500 SB QB with one of the very worst
performances in league championship history.

I just hope history doesn't repeat itself tomorrow (Pats not hosting Denver in AFCC), but I'm afraid
that's exactly what's going to happen.

Boy aren't you confident?

 

[denverpatsfan]

Glad this was posted, I've been meaning to bring it up.

I wasn't on the board around then, so I'm curious: what did you think before that game?

I thought the Pats were clearly overmatched. Outcome was zero surprise.

What was the consensus here?

With the injury to Gronk I didn't think they had a chance in hell.

 

[RobertWeathers]

With the injury to Gronk I didn't think they had a chance in hell.

It was slim w/o Gronk and impossible when Talib got killed

 

[denverpatsfan]

It was slim w/o Gronk and impossible when Talib got killed

Yeah. That really put the nail in the coffin of that season. If Brady had connected with Edleman maybe they keep it closer? I thought Brady had a rough game.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Yeah. That really put the nail in the coffin of that season. If Brady had connected with Edleman maybe they keep it closer? I thought Brady had a rough game.

He did. This is why its overblown that JE is the key. It's JE and Gronk together.

 

[VectorPrime]

The winner of the 2013/14 AFCCG was awarded the honor of being destroyed by the Seahawks. I'm glad we didn't need to see that happen to us.

 

[MrNathanDrake]

pretty sure we didnt have gronk or wilfork that game.

 

[ViperGTS]

What I remember was Welker taking out Talib and the morons who argued it wasn't on purpose. BS. Welker never looked for the ball, he locked onto Talib and went for it.

 

[sevengables_2207]

What I remember was Welker taking out Talib and the morons who argued it wasn't on purpose. BS. Welker never looked for the ball, he locked onto Talib and went for it.

Yeah, I vividly remember that play and echo your sentiments. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, as after this, the Broncos were able to sustain drive after drive and pretty much win the game easily.

 

[blackglass3]

Still, that dump got awful quiet when Brady scored the TD to put within 10. They knew what he was capable of doing.

 

[MainePatsFan26]

I rewatched the 2013 AFC Championship game with the Pats at Denver (ok, so I watched the condensed version on NFL game pass).

I know comparing teams is very dangerous......after all......the 2012 Pats were better than the 2011 Pats, but the 2011 Pats beat the Ravens in the AFCCG but the 2012 ones did not.

I think the advantage this Patriots team has over the one two years ago and in 2012 is that we have the talent but also have recent memory of what it's like to lose with our end of season downturns.

The Broncos threats of intentionally injuring Gronk and attacks on Brady have got to give the Patriots additional motivation.

I think it will be close, but if this team comes out flat versus the Broncos it will be for a reason I can't understand.

 

[supafly]

I rewatched the 2013 AFC Championship game with the Pats at Denver (ok, so I watched the condensed version on NFL game pass).

Some interesting notes, our current receiving core of Gronk/Edelman/Amendola/LaFell/White/Martin is far better than the2013 group of Edelman/Amendola/Dobson/Collie/Vereen/Mulligan, but our offense wasn't nearly as ineffective in that game as I remember. They had some productive drives (in terms of yardage) that didn't result touchdowns (1 ended in a FG, 1 a turnover on downs, 1 with a sack that pushed them out of FG range).

The issue was that they didn't have the ball as many times as they'd like. Despite having a video game-like, record setting offense, the Broncos went on long drive after long drive. Chewing up clock, dinking and dunking all the way down the field. It wasn't the long ball that kept the offense alive, no, it was consistently just getting enough yards to get first downs.

Sure the Manning of this year is FAR FAR inferior to 2013's version, but he can still dink and dunk, right? I think it will be like playing the Chiefs again. Despite giving up many third downs last week, we still ultimatley made the plays keep them out of the end zone. Hopefully the same is true this week. After, if you look at last week's game you could easily see the game going differently if the Chiefs convert some of their goal line chances and we miss on one of ours. The adage is true that there will be a couple plays that end up deciding the game.

I don't mean to send anyone into a panic, I think we'll still win. I'm just not sure it will be as easy as everyone thinks.

I know comparing teams is very dangerous......after all......the 2012 Pats were better than the 2011 Pats, but the 2011 Pats beat the Ravens in the AFCCG but the 2012 ones did not.


Hopefully we won't see any long balls in Slater's direction.

I agree both with the notion that DEN will attempt to chew up clock via the running game + dinking/dunking down the field (whereas everyone keeps ridiculing his arm strength, which is true, but may not have anything near the effect that some think), as well as the thought that KC played us almost exactly how they intended--minus the poor red zone efficiency.

I can't remember what the odds of winning historically have been in terms of TOP, but I know that they drop to much lower numbers when we see the type of discrepancy involved in last week's game (38-22). We saw something similar in the 2011 SB loss to the Giants. It just makes it so much more difficult to score points when you only have the opportunity to run 58 plays like last week, when you're used to running another 25-30 percent in all of your other games. Obviously, that loss of opportunities hurts in terms of your scoring, and adds to the opposition's chances of scoring. This is why I believe we'll need to run the ball more today, or actually one of several important reasons. I could be wrong, but it has to have been something that BB/Brady/JMcD discussed throughout the week.

 

[supafly]

Still, that dump got awful quiet when Brady scored the TD to put within 10. They knew what he was capable of doing.

While true, the game actually wasn't as close as the 10 point score indicates, as Manning and the Broncos had the ball inside the red zone again at the end and obviously chose to take a knee.

We gave up 500+ yards in that game, with 400 of them going to Manning. At one point I believe they were up 23-3. The game was never really close after the first 15 minutes or so.