What to Watch For: AFC Championship – Patriots vs. Broncos

Stephen Gostkowski? He nearly always is. With that said, I don’t believe the Denver offense can score enough points against the New England defense to make up for the shortcomings of Peyton Manning at this point in his career.

Regardless of the hype, make no mistake, Patriots coach Bill Belichick will keep his team focused on the task at hand. “Disappointing, disappointing result. There’s such a fine line today between winning and losing”.

“Right now, part of the narrative of Peyton’s career is he’s the greatest regular season quarterback in National Football League history”. It put Brady and the offense in chase mode the rest of the way. I’m not upset. I am, but I’m not because I’ve seen our team fight.

“Coming here, I expected myself to jump right in and be Superman”, Davis said. Looking at the injury report though, some of those might not matter because 16 Patriots players were listed on it this week, as MassLive points out.

Harris said this week on ESPN that the best way to tackle Rob Gronkowski is to hit him low, at the knees – a comment that drew a NSFW-ish tweet from the Pats tight end.

The Brady-Manning rivalry is the NFL’s best, said Myers, although injuries have taken a toll on Manning in recent years and sapped the power from his throws, while Brady has rolled on.

Veteran Von Miller gives the Denver Broncos an intimidating presence at the outside linebacker position. He finished 27 for 56 for 310 yards and two picks.

Then, on fourth-and-goal from the 4 with 12 seconds left, Brady found Gronkowski – again double-covered – in the back corner of the end zone.

Aqib Talib stepped in front of Brady’s pass and deflected it skyward. The Broncos’ defense has 14 interceptions, 10 fumble recoveries, 19 forced fumbles and scored five defensive touchdowns.

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 Patriots need to play a near-perfect game to beat Denver, and shoring up the special teams unit will go a long way in accomplishing that. We played to the end. There’s a bigger game two weeks from now, one with Super superlatives. The Patriots have certainly been in that situation before. With a win, the Patriots would advance to their record ninth Super Bowl.

“I think they are going to win”, James said. In their previous title game meeting nearly a decade before that, Manning led a miraculous comeback from 18 points down in the first half. This town has been a house of horrors for Brady, who’s now 2-7 in the Mile High City. “It’s just going to matter how well we go out and play, and how well we execute”. Read on for amNewYork’s predictions for the AFC and NFC championship games. I know they’ve been through a lot of tough situations this year, a lot of close games, three overtime wins, been down, came back like they did against us a couple of the times, so we know they’re physically and mentally tough. He’s still as bright as they come, a savant in terms of seeing the field. The game will be played in Denver, where Brady has struggled through the years, going 2-6.

“Because of the scoring situation in the game”, Belichick said. We like to think of tumbleweeds blowing across an empty square while two old cowboys stare at one another just before the big showdown.