Mike Dussault

Pats come out a little tight, spot Peyton a lead (not 24-0), somewhere in the 10 or 14 to 0 or 3 area. Pats settle in and come back, playing lights out in the third.

Game comes down to late in the fourth quarter where the Patriots either close it out with their running game leading the way, or Peyton puts up one last drive to either win it or lose it.

I agree this is a concern and as I said on the podcast this morning I really think Collins needs to be a key defender if the Pats are going to win one or two more games. 

He doesn’t need to be all-everything unstoppable like he was against the Colts, but he needs to continue to play with confidence and let the game come to him.

He’ll have his hands full this weekend with Julius Thomas (at times, not all the time), but look for him to get sent after Peyton a few times, especially in the second half.

His future is bright, but we can’t expect too much out of Collins, especially not singlehandedly carry them to a Super Bowl title.

It’s silly. After all this team has been through, the heart they’ve shown and the quarterback/coach they have, I’m not sure how anyone could write the Pats off. But hey, the pundits have to make their predictions that mean absolutely nothing.

The Broncos have better weapons at wide receiver and tight end. After that I’m not sure where else you give them the clear advantage. The Pats are a balanced team that should be able to play any kind of game. 

The Patriots defense, especially in the secondary, have very good pieces to challenge Peyton. As I’ve said all week, this is the best anti-Peyton secondary we’ve had since the 2003 AFCCG. A similar result would not surprise me.

With the Pats the games almost always come down to the end, so I don’t see how or why this one will be any different.

I think you always have to expect defenses will play a little better in the playoffs, especially early in the game. You’d expect the Broncos defense to come in all fired up about stopping the Patriots’ run game. That’s why I’d consider spreading them out just to take them away from what they likely spent most of the week preparing for… i.e. Blount.

Either way the goal will be to stick with the run game throughout the game. It’s not about running it in the first quarter, it’s about running it in the fourth quarter to bleed the clock and take advantage of what will hopefully be a tired Broncos defense that has it’s head spinning from the balanced and unpredictable nature of the Patriots offense.