New England Patriots
Many teams would be unable to handle an injury as devastating as that of Bo Nix so deep into the playoffs. But the Broncos might be an exception.
Welcome to Season 14, Episode 20 of the Unconventional Preview, a serious yet lighthearted, nostalgia-tinted look at the Patriots’ weekly matchup …
To anyone who says the Broncos can beat the Patriots in Sunday’s AFC Championship game with backup Jarrett Stidham — who has not thrown an NFL pass since a Week 18 loss to the Raiders on Jan. 7, 2024 — at quarterback:
Well, yeah, of course they can. That’s not exactly a bold declaration.
The Broncos, who beat Josh Allen and the Bills in the divisional round, 33-30 in overtime, are the top seed in the conference and feature perhaps the NFL’s biggest home-field advantage because of the high altitude in Colorado.
They feature a hellacious defense — the Broncos ranked second in the NFL in yards allowed (278.2 per game) and third in points allowed (18.3) during the regular season. Most alarmingly, considering the Patriots’ recent struggles protecting quarterback Drake Maye, the Broncos led the league with 68 sacks, 11 more than the runner-up Falcons. They’ve added three more in the playoffs.
The loss of high-energy second-year quarterback Bo Nix to a season-ending broken ankle late in the win over the Bills was both strange (in the timing and circumstances) and stunning (in its impact). Many teams would be unable to handle such a devastating injury so deep into the playoffs.
But the Broncos might be an exception.
Coach Sean Payton is a masterful game planner, and as rusty as Stidham — a 2019 Patriots fourth-round pick who for a fleeting moment seemed in line to succeed Tom Brady — may be, it’s unlikely that he will be as inept as Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud was in heaving up four interceptions last Sunday.
Stidham — who has eight touchdown passes, eight interceptions, and a 59.4 completion percentage in 20 career games and four starts — can be mistake-prone when pressured. But he will be protected by perhaps the NFL’s best offensive line, bookended by stalwart tackles Garett Bolles and Mike McGlinchey. The Patriots know Stidham well — offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels coached him in New England and Las Vegas — but pressuring him in the hope he makes Stroudian mistakes will not be easy.
This lengthy acknowledgment that the Broncos should not be underestimated is not meant to suggest that the Patriots are headed for a disappointing day. They should win this game, even with Denver’s (gasp, wheeze) home-field advantage. But it is imperative to protect Maye (who fumbled an absurd four times against the Texans) much better than they have through two playoff games. And it’s imperative that Maye’s internal clock functions better than it did last week.
On paper, the Patriots have a massive advantage at quarterback — Maye is Brady’s true successor, a flop or two removed — and they must do all they can to take advantage of that Sunday afternoon.
Kick it off, Borregales, and let’s get this thing started …
Three players worth watching other than the quarterbacks
Will Campbell: The Patriots’ rookie left tackle has not exactly been the impediment to opposing pass rushers this postseason that his job requirement demands he should be.
In the wild-card round, the Chargers’ Odafe Oweh tormented Campbell and fellow rookie Jared Wilson at left guard with three sacks, three quarterback hits, and a pair of forced fumbles, including a strip-sack of Maye in the third quarter.
It was more of the same last Sunday, with Texans superstar Will Anderson giving Patriots fans flashbacks of the Reggie White-Max Lane mismatch in Super Bowl XXXI. Anderson submitted a strikingly similar stat line to Oweh’s a week earlier, with three sacks, two forced fumbles, and a QB hit.
Campbell, who missed four games with a sprained knee, has often been overpowered and pushed back into what should be Maye’s pocket, and it’s fair to wonder if he’s at full strength yet.
The Broncos — whose stellar pass rush features defensive player of the year finalist Nik Bonitto on the outside and Boston College product Zach Allen on the interior — are well aware of Maye’s ball-protection issues (six fumbles in the postseason).
Campbell must be much sturdier than he has been through the first two playoff games of his career.
Milton Williams: A rare and notable development has occurred with the Patriots’ defense, which has been stellar in its own right this postseason: It has actually gotten healthier late in the season.
Williams, fellow defensive tackle Khyiris Tonga, and linebacker Robert Spillane are among the defenders who returned in recent weeks from injury. Williams’s return in Week 18 after missing five games with a high ankle sprain has been essential to a defense that has nine sacks, four interceptions, and has allowed just 16 points in each of its two playoff wins.
Along with linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson — who is having a Willie McGinest-type of postseason, with three sacks and seven QB hits — Williams must find a way to pierce the Broncos’ excellent line to put consistent pressure on Stidham.
Kayshon Boutte: It was lost somewhat in the post-victory chatter about the need to protect the ball better, but Maye did throw three touchdown passes against the Texans, all of them on throws that would qualify as very good (a 28-yard strike to DeMario Douglas) to exceptional (a 7-yard dart to Stefon Diggs) to mind-bending (a 32-yard beauty to Boutte, who hauled it in with one hand).
Boutte had three catches for a team-high 75 yards against the Texans despite often being defended by All-Pro cornerback Derek Stingley. The Broncos feature a true lockdown corner of their own in former defensive player of the year Patrick Surtain,but Maye will not hesitate to take deep shots, trusting his receivers to win the battle for the ball. No Patriots receiver does that better than Boutte.
The flashback
The Patriots and Broncos have met in the playoffs five times, with Denver winning four, all on its own turf. The Patriots’ lone victory was a 45-10 throttling of the Tim Tebow-led Broncos in the divisional round during the 2011 postseason.
Denver historically has been a destination of football horrors for pretty much every opponent during the postseason. The Broncos have an all-time playoff record of 18-3 in home games. The high altitude is unyielding, and the same can be said for several of their defenses through the years.
The Patriots’ four losses there have been recited and revisited often this past week. The three most recent come to mind without much prompting, because they all ended Patriots seasons during the Brady/Bill Belichick era in distinctive ways.
A 27-13 loss in the 2005 divisional round ended a quest for a threepeat, the key play being a Champ Bailey 100-yard interception return that probably should have been called a touchback after Patriots tight end Ben Watson ran — guesstimating the hypotenuse here — approximately 3.2 miles to catch him from behind and punch the ball loose.
They lost AFC title games in the 2013 and ’15 seasons against the noodle-armed but savvy as ever Peyton Manning. The Patriots were crushed by injuries to their receiving corps in a 26-16 loss in ’13; Brady threw passes to, among others, Matthew Mulligan and Matthew Slater in that game. In ’15, Von Miller, DeMarcus Wade, and Derek Wolfe pummeled Brady relentlessly in the Broncos’ 20-18 victory, with that trio combining for four sacks and 13 quarterback hits. In my mind, that was the gutsiest performance of Brady’s career.
As for the other loss, that came at Mile High Stadium in the divisional round of the 1986 playoffs. The Patriots had the ball trailing, 20-17, in the final minutes. But Broncos pass rusher Rulon Jones buried Patriots quarterback Tony Eason in the end zone for a safety with 1:37 remaining, thwarting hopes of a tying or winning drive.
Eason actually had a more efficient statistical day (13 of 24, 194 yards, 2 TDs, no INTs), and ’86 was a fine season in general for the maligned quarterback. But had Madden ratings existed then, his awareness would have been about a 7 on a 0-100 scale.
Grievance of the week
The NFL on Thursday announced its five finalists for an assortment of year-end awards, including Most Valuable Player and offensive player of the year. Maye is a candidate in both categories, which seems great, and just on the surface, maybe really is. But I’ve got my suspicions that it means something else is at play.
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is considered Maye’s main competition — and probably the front-runner — for MVP. He is a finalist there, obviously, but he is not among the five offensive player of the year candidates, which includes his teammate Puka Nacua, the 49ers’ Christian McCaffrey, the Seahawks’ Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and the Falcons’ Bijan Robinson.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense that Maye is an OPOY finalist and Stafford is not until you think about what it could indicate.
ESPN’s Mina Kimes theorized on Bluesky that Maye’s inclusion could suggest that voters who picked Stafford for MVP wanted a way to give Maye a consolation prize.
I suspect that will prove to be the case, and it is a tell about the MVP voting. Prediction: Stafford will win MVP, with Maye missing out on both MVP and OPOY.
It’s the likely outcome as I see it, and an annoying one given that Maye was the definition of an MVP, guiding a 10-win turnaround for the second-seeded Patriots.
Stafford — who threw 46 touchdown passes for a No. 5 seed — was more of a counting-stats force than the most valuable one. But it sure feels like the MVP voting will claim otherwise.
Prediction, or I wonder if John Elway would have made it with the Yankees …
The Patriots are attempting to reach their 12th Super Bowl, an unfathomable number for those of us who grew up pre-Drew Bledsoe, let alone pre-Brady. They will need to play their most complete and disciplined game of the season to make it happen. Mike Vrabel’s close-knit charges have earned your faith week by week and win by win, and they deserve your faith now. It’s going to be tight, and rookie kicker Andy Borregales may need to deliver his own version of a Vinatieri ending, but this wonderful season isn’t ending — not yet. Patriots 19, Broncos 16
Get the latest Boston sports news
Receive updates on your favorite Boston teams, straight from our newsroom to your inbox.
Sports,Chad Finn,Football,New England Patriots,NFL#Broncos #dont #starting #quarterback #doesnt #theyve #left1769283337
