Brady threw two touchdowns to Rob Gronkowski and sneaked in for another, and the defending Super Bowl champions reached their fifth straight AFC title game with a 27-20 victory over the Chiefs.
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“It’s pretty special to get back to another AFC championship game”, said Tom Brady, who will play in his 10th conference title game. “It’s hard to do”. It was impossible to know what to expect from the Patriots’ offense on Saturday night with so many new faces – it’s one thing to look good in practice, but how would they do in game speed against a tough Chiefs defense? The Patriots can become the first team since the 2003-04 New England teams to win back-to-back Super Bowls.
New England now await the victor of the Steelers vs. Broncos match for the AFC Championship and a shot at Superbowl 50. When near the goal line, they actually ran the ball and when that didn’t get the touchdown, huddled back up instead of using a timeout.
Gronkowski, who missed practice Thursday and Friday because of back and knee issues, scored on catches of 8 and 16 yards, the seventh and eighth postseason touchdown catches of his career.
The New England Patriots defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in Foxborough 27-20.
“He’s a great player”, Gronkowski said of Edelman. But they learned what many other teams already have: It’s hard to win in New England – and even more difficult in the postseason.
“The chemistry was clicking”, Gronkowski said.
“I have all the respect in the world for Andy [Reid]”, said Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. “Any time you go out with your teammates and get a win in the divisional round against a really good football team, it feels good”.
Palmer completed 25-of-41 passes for 349 yards, including an 8-yard touchdown pass to Michael Floyd to open the scoring and a 9-yard TD toss to Floyd with 3:44 remaining in the fourth quarter to give Arizona a 17-13 lead. The Patriots struck first on a Tom Brady to Rob Gronkowski pass and led 7-0 early in the first quarter.
Smith finally got the Chiefs into the end zone when he hit Albert Wilson on a 10-yard pass that made it 21-13 with two minutes left in the third quarter.
The result of the drive was a one yard touchdown run by Charcandrick West to cap a 15-play 80-yard snoozefest that left only 1:15 on the clock. Brady fired, the ball was caught and the Patriots moved ahead 11 yards.
The Patriots started off the game looking like the Patriots we saw in the first half of the season.
“It took everything we got”, Brady said. “We’ll be a better team for it next year”.
The Chiefs scored a late touchdown to cut the lead to 27-70 with a little more than a minute to play. “When the ball is coming out in one or two seconds there’s not much you can do, but I believe if we did jam them the whole game that we would have had the success that we had towards the end of the game”. “I’m super proud of him, the way he worked to get back, the way he worked to get ready for this playoff game”. He has managed to win a whopping 22 of those 30 games. The Patriots are 18-4 all time in the playoffs at Gillette Stadium….
Brady tied Peyton Manning with his ninth career 300-yard passing game in the postseason.
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But as we’ve seen with the Patriots, those plays don’t happen without Edelman on the field, extending drives that had routinely sputtered when he was out.
