Stakes high for Brady, Manning in Super Bowl bid

Myers believes Manning, the National Football League’s regular season giant, sorely needs another Super Bowl title to elevate his status, while Brady would reign as the league’s greatest ever quarterback should he raise the Lombardi Trophy once more. The Broncos are to host the…

As they meet the Broncos on Sunday in Denver to decide who goes to the Super Bowl, the Patriots are coming off a 27-20 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in an A.F.C. divisional game, ending the Chiefs’ 11-game winning streak.

“This is just a continuation of playing with a chip on his shoulder that he brought into the National Football League because of where he was drafted”, Myers said about Brady, drafted by the Patriots in the sixth round, the 199th player taken in the 2000 draft.

Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning gets a $2 million bonus – pushing his season take from $15 million to $17 million – if the Broncos win today (and he takes 70 percent of the snaps).

Abraded, he now relies as much on guile and grit.

“I just say, ‘We’ll fix it, we’ll be fine.’ That’s all I say”. He’s a different guy. Although he’s now migrating out of the mid-30s sweet spot between advanced football knowledge and lingering football skills, Manning still excels at scanning the defense, running the information through the red-foreheaded computer that resides in his helmet, and positioning his guys to ensure that he’ll get the ball as quickly as his duck-cannon arm can to the open man. He spent the final four seasons of a 15-year career with the Broncos. Fitzgerald has 912 yards receiving and 10 TDs in eight postseason games.

It was just Manning’s second TD pass at home this season.

With No. 1 quarterback Peyton Manning injured, New England opened a 21-7 lead early in the fourth quarter. In Denver’s win over the Patriots on November 29, Thomas had five drops and his only catch was a leaping 36-yard grab that ignited the Broncos’ go-ahead drive in the closing minutes of regulation. They’re always in my way to get what I want. “That is what I think their legacies will be”, said Myers. Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger was the only quarterback in 2015 to reach 300 passing yards against Denver, and he did it twice. He has his targets, and they are among the best in the game, so they kind of help his case in that regard, making him look better than he actually is at this point.

Once inside, Kraft fired up the already rowdy crowd, crammed in to hear him and he even gave them an update on the team.

For the record, Ninkovich has been there since 2009, which makes him a long-timer by Patriots standards.

Arizona blitzes more than any team in the league, and it likely will try to put Newton under pressure from the start even though Carolina’s QB threw a league-high 18 TDs in blitz situations this season.

The Patriots and Broncos will meet for the 5th time in playoffs on Sunday, here is a look back at their previous four match-ups. If Denver do knock off the reigning champions and deny Brady a chance at a fifth ring, the most conceivable scenario involves their pass rush disrupting the Patriots’ offensive rhythm, not Manning emerging victorious in a shootout. Brady has never lost (4-0) to the Broncos with both Gronkowski and receiver Julian Edelman in the lineup.

– Pat Graham reporting from Denver.