Well, as we all may have expected, the AFC Championship Game on Sunday between the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos brought all the drama that we could have imagined.
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Carried him back to his fourth Super Bowl, a 20-18 victor, for a chance to win his second, against Cam Newton and the Panthers – 49-15 winners over the Cardinals.
The Patriots won a replay review to help set up their initial touchdown when it was determined that Manning’s pass parallel to the line of scrimmage in the flat to running back Ronnie Hillman, at first ruled incomplete, had traveled backward, allowing linebacker Jonathan Freeny’s recovery of the loose ball at the Broncos’ 22-yard line to stand. The Denver defense will hang in as long as they can, but eventually Brady will work some magic with either Edelman or Gronkowski, and blow the doors off. Stephen Gostkowski? He nearly always is.
The victory means Denver will play in its first Super Bowl since losing to the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014.
The story of this game will be centered around Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, two of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. They certainly did at that.
Sunday’s Cardinals-Panthers game marked the first time in National Football League playoff history that two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks started against each other.
Carson Palmer, who is 36 and in his 13th season, will pay his first-ever road playoff game and just his fourth playoff game overall. “I didn’t”, said Malcolm Butler, the Patriots up-and-coming cornerback. And I feel OK myself.
Brady, who coming into this game had been playing some of the best football of his career and is one of the front-runners for the NFL Most Valuable Player award, was intercepted twice in the second quarter. “When he’s inside you can jam him a little bit more”. “It’s a team game”, tight end Rob Gronkowski said. “You can’t put it on the hands of Steph, there’s no way”.
This was also far from Brady’s best performance. Brady may be better than Manning, but Von Miller and Wade Phillips got the best of Josh McDaniels. He finished 27 for 56 for 310 yards. That led to a 38-yard field goal by Gostkowski to make it 17-12 with 10:26 to play in the third quarter. Denver recovered New England’s onside kick to seal the win.
While Manning is now 6-11 against Tom Brady, he is 3-2 against the Patriots in conference championship games. The Patriots have certainly been in that situation before. The loss ended the Patriots’ season and, more importantly, their quest for consecutive Super Bowl championships.
“The big thing is we’ve got to win”, Broncos boss John Elway said. This town has been a house of horrors for Brady, who’s now 2-7 in the Mile High City. “You know, you get to the AFC championship and you get down, you’ve got to play well”, Patriots safety Devin McCourty. In the NFC, the last time the Panthers took on the Cardinals was a year ago in the first round of the players.
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The Broncos led throughout the afternoon, but it was a nail-biter at the end, as a late comeback attempt by New England fell just short. This game will be for the AFC Championship, but others may have a different view of this game. Gary Kubiak is taking the team he played for to the big game.
