The hate on the New England Patriots, their quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick piles up like plowed, dirty snow on a New York City street. The only difference is, the snow melts.
The Patriots’ 20-18 loss to the Denver Broncos in Sunday’s AFC championship, a hard-fought game on both sides and one of the most watched championship games in NFL history, seems to have elated football fans outside of the New England area. But the game’s score sums it up. It could have went either way.
“It was a very competitive game,” said Belichick. “They made a couple of more plays than we did. Just in the end, we came up short.”
The Broncos applied nonstop pressure on Brady throughout the game. The volume of the crowd noise also made it difficult for New England to hear snap counts. Denver’s defense was able to change Brady’s timing, keep him running out of the pocket, thus altering their passing game. Brady missed receivers. There were over-throws and under-throws. One of the misses, if caught, could have been a game changer.
“There were a lot of big plays in the game. Any one of them probably could have made a bit of a difference,” Belichick stated.
You can credit the Bronco’s defense. They hit, knocked down and tackled Brady 20-plus times throughout the game. Denver was credited with two interceptions and four sacks, probably costing Patriots’ offensive line coach of two years Dave DeGuglielmo his job Tuesday.
“It was tough for us to get into a rhythm,” said Brady, showing signs of the physical rigors of the game and the 2015-16 season.
Despite the pressure from Denver’s defense, Brady was 27 for 56, totaling 310 passing yards, completing 10 more passes, with 24 more attempted passes and 134 more total passing yards than Denver quarterback Peyton Manning, who completed 17 of his 32 pass attempts for 176 total yards, advancing to the Super Bowl.
Turning 40 in late March, this will be Manning’s fourth Super Bowl appearance. He’s already one won and lost two—one win and one loss as an Indianapolis Colt, the team that drafted him, and one loss with the Broncos in 2014.
Football purists want the story to end with Manning being victorious just one more time, riding off into the sunset like all of the other American folk heroes. They want this to be his last hurrah, so that he can retire and go out on top as the champ, validating their contention of his greatness. But what else does Manning want besides winning the Super Bowl on Feb. 7? We know what Cam Newton wants.
