The Patriots are going to the Super Bowl! The Patriots are going to the Super Bowl!
Did I say the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl?
The remarkable season continues with a hard-fought AFC Championship 10-7 victory. It wasn’t pretty, and the cold and snow made it nearly impossible to play, but a Drake Maye naked bootleg sealed the victory and punched their ticket to Santa Clara.
The Good
The underrated Defense stood tall again by forcing a Jarrett Stidham turnover, which led to their only TD. In the second half, Christian Gonzalez made up for giving up the only big play by Denver by Intercepting Stidham. They also had a turnover on downs when Sean Payton failed to kick a Field Goal and Craig Woodson nearly picked off the pass.
The Defense held the Denver running game to 79 yards rushing and forced Jarrett Stidham to try and beat them through the air. I thought the Patriots’ D-line dominated the #1 Offensive line of the Broncos. They put pressure on Stidham all game. Christian Barmore easily handled All-Pro Quinn Meinerz and turned him into a turnstile.
A brilliant move by Zak Kuhr was to flop K’Lavon Chaisson and Anfernee Jennings. This allowed Chaisson to go up against Mike McGlinchey rather than All-Pro Garrett Bolles. Overall, the Pats had 3 sacks against the best pass-blocking line in the league.
The key series in the game was the Pats’ opening drive of the 3rd Quarter, which started at the NE 31-yard line. The Patriots ran a 16-play drive that consumed 9:31 off the clock and kicked a 23-yard game winning Field Goal. On the drive, Maye went 2 for 3 and a sack, but they ran the ball 11 times. The big run was a 28-yard scramble by Maye.
Interesting that the Pats O-line gave up 5 sacks for 31 yards, the same number of yards the Patriots got in 3 sacks.
Stidham was 17 of 31 for 138 yards and a TD. Take away that one deep pass he was able to complete, he had 80 yards on 30 other dropbacks.
I called the Maye naked rollout to seal the game. My wife, who was watching the game with me, is the only person who could validate that. In Maye’s post-game press conference, he revealed that he ran that play on his own, and it was not the called play. He stiff-armed Denver LB Jonah Elliss (Christian Elliss’ brother) to get the game-ending 1st down.
No Patriots turnovers in the game under very brutal weather. The Defense had two big Takeaways. Drake Maye ate the ball and took sacks rather than trying to force a play. He also didn’t have any fumbles in this bad weather game.
Leonard Taylor was called up from the Patriots’ practice squad for the game. The 6’4”, 305-pound DT had a huge Field Goal block, which would have tied the game. Taylor was an Undrafted Free Agent from the 2024 Draft, signed by the Jets. They waived him in October, and the next day, the Patriots signed him.
The Patriots (not necessarily Maye) beat three top 5 Defenses and that is the 1st time a team has done this. I would say that Maye did enough to win because the Defense held down the opponents.
The Patriots are the 1st Team to go 9-0 on the road in a season
Drake Maye will be the youngest (23) QB to start a game in the Super Bowl.
The Patriots beat the Denver curse and beat the Broncos in an AFC Championship in Mile High Stadium for the first time. Neither Belichick nor Brady could do that
Christian Elliss had the big play on the strip sack of Jarrett Stidham.
The Patriots are going to the Super Bowl to be the 1st team to go to the Super Bowl in 5 straight Decades
The Patriots ran the ball 38 times for 141 yards, 3.7 YPC. Despite the Broncos knowing the Patriots were going to run the ball. Stevenson was a workhorse with 25 carries for 71 yards, and Drake Maye had 10 carries for 65 yards. Stevenson should be given credit for his ball security as Denver was desperately trying to strip the ball out of his hands.
Carlton Davis led the team with 7 Tackles, Christian Gonzalez, Marcus Jones, and Jack Gibbens had 6 each.
Gibbens filled in admirably in Robert Spillane’s absence.
Vrabel is the first Head Coach to go to the Super Bowl with the same franchise he played for. He has a chance to also win a Super Bowl as a coach and as a player.
Brilliant play call of the QB draw for the TD. Garrett Bradbury had his man pushed deep into the End Zone.
You have to love Coach Vrabel’s breakdown of the team in the locker room after the game. He yelled out “Warriors,” and then he said “Come out and play”. This was from the movie “the Warriors” where two rival gangs fought. Mack Hollins even dressed in Warrior’s attire before the game. It could also be a reference to the Patriots being Road Warriors with the 9-0 record.
The Bad
This was not Drake Maye’s best game. He finished 10 of 21 for 86 yards. He is the 1st QB to win an AFC Championship game while throwing for under 100 yards. Part of this was that the team was trying to run the ball to take time off the clock. The Patriots ran the ball 29 times in the second half. They had the ball for 21 minutes in the 2nd half to the Broncos’ 9 minutes.
Jaylinn Hawkins had a bad game. It appeared that Christian Gonzalez was expecting help over the top on the 1st Quarter deep pass, and Hawkins was nowhere to be found. Hawkins got caught peaking in the backfield on the Sutton TD too.
The weather was a huge factor. Greg Bedard reported that the local Denver weathermen did not predict that the snow would be that heavy. If Sean Payton knew that the weather was going to be that bad, he would have kicked that Field Goal.
This was bad for the Patriots. Denver punter Jeremy Crawshaw was the best player on the field for the Broncos. He had 6 punts and averaged 51 yards per kick. He had three of those kicks inside the 20. He kept the ball away from Marcus Jones, and he only had one return.
That was the 1st time that Denver has lost at a temperature under 50 degrees.
The Ugly
Sean Payton got greedy and tried to get a 2nd TD, foregoing a chip shot Field Goal. The Patriots got tremendous pressure on Stidham, and he threw it short. The ball should have been picked off by Craig Woodson.
What were the officials thinking when they blew the play dead on the fumbled backward pass by Stidham? They usually let the play run through because all turnovers are automatically reviewed. That cost Elijah Ponder a scoop and score. Luckily, it didn’t hurt the Pats, as Drake Maye ran a QB draw for the TD.
Bryce Barringer nearly lost the game with his ineffective punting. He had 8 punts for a 37.9 average and only 1 inside the 20. I have the Patriots drafting a Punter in the Draft.
Sean Payton kept spouting his mouth off all week and gave the Patriots bulletin board material on how the Broncos fans will have two weeks to get ready for their next game … jackass.
Quotes
Milton Williams asked if he thinks the Patriots’ defense has been ‘overlooked and underrated’ “Definitely. All year. And we’ve got that chip on our shoulder to come out here every time we step between those white lines and show everybody who we are. And that’s the bottom line.” He also was heard saying, “No. 1 offensive line can kiss my ass.”
Nate Tice said, “Broncos subbed late on the Stidham INT in the 4th quarter. It allowed the Patriots to take their time and run their biggest DL on while the ref sat on the football and the clock kept ticking. You can feel the entire operation get hurried.”
Somebody should tell Stephen A. Smith that Zak Kuhr is the Defensive Play Caller and not Terrell Williams, who has been out battling cancer since before the Pre-season.
Jack Andrade posted, “The Patriots have allowed 26 points across 3 playoff games to reach Super Bowl LX. The only team to allow fewer points over 3 playoff games before a Super Bowl appearance was the 2000 Ravens (allowed 16 points).”
Evan Lazar posted “Defense wins AFC championships: the Patriots become the first team in NFL history to reach the Super Bowl a year after losing 13+ games.”
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Merrimack Valley native and lifelong fan of the New England Patriots. My earliest memories of the Patriots were attending as a child with my dad, the off-season practice at Phillips Academy. I was at the Patriots game at Harvard Stadium in 1970 where Bob “Harpo” Gladieux was called out of the stands by the stadium announcer over the PA to play in the game. Analyzing the draft since ESPN first started to televise it in 1980 and former writer for the Lowell Sun Newspaper.
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Didn’t the Bears allow fewer points in the playoffs? I thought they shut out 2 teams?
You are correct that the 1985 Bears shut out two teams on the way to the Super Bowl. I think what Mr Andrade was saying was over a three-game run.
Drake is not the youngest QB, Marino was younger. He would be the youngest to win if they do.