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Patriots Preview: Week 6 vs Denver

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Right, let’s try this again, shall we? On Sunday the 1-3 Denver Broncos travel to Gillette Stadium to take on the 2-2 New England Patriots.

Date: Sunday, October 18, 2020
Game Time: 1:00 PM EST
Venue: Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA
Network: CBS
All-time record: Broncos lead series 30-23 (including playoffs)

When They Last Met…

Patriots 41-16 Broncos
November 12, 2017

AP Photo/Jack Dempsey

The Patriots got off to a fast start at Empower Field after the Broncos spilled a Ryan Allen punt which was recovered by Jacob Hollister. On the resulting possession, Tom Brady found Rex Burkhead over the middle for a 14-yard touchdown.

After the Broncos stalled following a long drive downfield, they settled for a field goal. Denver kicked off to return possession to New England and Dion Lewis received the kick around three yards deep in the Patriots endzone and bolted 103 yards to the house for an incredible touchdown.

Again Denver tried to fire back, but could only settle with another field goal. Patriots also matched this when they couldn’t convert in the red zone and also settled for three points.

As the second quarter rolled on, the teams both had a further field goal conversion each and the Patriots launched a late quarter drive into Broncos territory. Within the final minute, Brady fired a laser to Dwayne Allen for an 11-yard touchdown. Halftime- Patriots 27-9 Broncos.

Brock Osweiler finally found the end zone for Denver with a seven-yard pass over the middle to Demaryius Thomas for their only touchdown of the game.

Brady orchestrated a brilliant counter-attack which ended with Lewis rushing for his second touchdown of the night. The scoring was soon complete with Brady going to James White for a six-yard touchdown. Osweiler finished off proceedings by throwing an interception to Patrick Chung. Final- Patriots 41-16 Broncos.

Performances
NE
QB Tom Brady 25/34 – 266 YDS – 3 TD
RB Dion Lewis RUSH- 14 ATT – 55 YDS – 1 TD – 1 KRTD
CB Patrick Chung 1 INT
K Stephen Gostkowski 2/2 FG – 5/5 XP
DEN
QB Brock Osweiler 18/33 – 221 YDS – 1 TD – 1 INT
WR Emmanual Sanders 6/11 – 137 YDS

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What Went Right in ’01,’04 and Wrong in ’06,’13,’15?

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There might not be two more impressive wins of the Patriots Dynasty than taking down the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road in both the 2001 and 2004 AFC Championships. Since then, the Pats are 0-3 on the road in the conference championship, a trend they’ll want to reverse against the Chiefs on Sunday.

It got me wondering, what did those two teams have that the latter three did not? What enabled them to win the second-biggest game of the season in a hostile environment? What might we draw to this year’s Patriots squad?

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Is Patriots’ Run Defense a Fatal Flaw? — Season Film Review

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While the Patriots defense has been trending up the last few games, I was surprised to see they had fallen from a mid-season 23rd-ranked run defense to 30th in Football Outsider’s DVOA, an analytic that weighs situation and opponent. This is of course about when Dont’a Hightower went on IR, so some drop-off should be expected but it hadn’t been all that glaring to me recently.

If they do have a bad run defense it hasn’t hurt them in the win column. Last week against the Bills they gave up their second-highest yardage total this season (183) and held them to three points. Opening night against the Chiefs (185) remains the highest and only time a team actually ran to victory over New England.

Yardage wise they’re 26th, yards-per-carry they’re 32nd.

So is this a real flaw for the Pats’ defense? Will LeVeon Bell be able to exploit it? Could the Steelers ride that to victory? Miami got a season-low 67 yards on the ground vs. New England and doesn’t look like they’ll do much more this Monday night.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the bigger running plays against and how much impact they had on the game.

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Patshow 113: Broncos Wrap

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Here’s the latest episode of Patshow, featuring the best of Broncos social media, what a feel-good win it was and a breakdown of Rex Burkhead’s first touchdown of the game. It’s Patshow!!

The Offensive Line’s Stellar Play Against Von and the Broncos

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The Patriots completely dominated the Broncos on Sunday night to the tune of a 41-16 drubbing that essentially eliminated Denver from playoff contention after just nine weeks (!). Throughout the week, heavy emphasis was placed on Brady’s return to Mile High Stadium, his personal “House of Horrors”, a stadium in which he is just 3-7 lifetime. However, Brady shredded the Broncos vaunted defense, throwing for 266 yards and three touchdowns in the blowout, thanks in large part to the play of his offensive line, who had another stellar game overall on Sunday night.

Brady was sacked just once against the Broncos, a play in which James White could not pick up the blitzing Justin Simmons, and Brady was only three times all night, a remarkable achievement when playing against one of the best pass-rushers in recent memory without your starting right tackle. Brady was hit on just 11.4% of his drop backs, which is a great rate when considering the percentage Brady has been hit in previous games in Denver.

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Pats Posits: Beating the Dead Horses

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Given the Patriots long history of weird games in Denver I fully expected Sunday night to be a close, weird game despite the Broncos stinking. Thankfully I was dead wrong as the Pats blasted Denver 41-16 in the kind of feel good explosion they seemed to be missing this season. To this point last night’s game has to be the signature win of the 2017 season, with the Pats breaking 40 points for the first time.

The Pats are 7-2 and once again, everything appears on track for another Belichick-Brady Super Bowl run.

Make no mistake, special teams led the way in this one. A blocked punt, a recovered muff, a kick off return for touchdown and a perfect Stephen Gostkowski (2/2 FG, 5/5 XP) gave the Pats the early advantage and they never looked back. After two weeks of talking red zone problems, the offense scored four touchdowns on six trips inside the 20.

Overall the balance of the offense was on full display, with the versatility of Dion Lewis and Rex Burkhead giving Denver’s defense problems all night long. This has been what we’ve been waiting for. The Pats were successful on early downs and never had to rely on the deep passing game until they had Denver on their heels. Then, in the second half, Brady took to the air to knock Denver out for good.

Defensively, it was Bend-Don’t-Break at it’s finest, led by what I thought was the biggest key to the game — stopping the run. The Pats didn’t have a sack, but got off the field when they needed to, only allowing one touchdown in three Bronco red zone trips. They executed the gameplan in a quiet, unspectacular fashion and that’s just what you need to do to beat a team like the Broncos in Denver.

This is the kind of team win that should leave us feeling pretty good about this Patriots team despite the litany of injuries that have befell them this season. They aren’t without weakness, but when games unfold like Sunday night’s did they look near unbeatable.

More on all of it in this Posits…

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A Look Back: Tom Brady’s House of Horrors

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The Patriots loss in the 2005 AFC Divisional game was one of the seminal moments of my Patriots fandom/obsession. It was at that moment we finally saw Bill Belichick and Tom Brady lose a playoff football game together, and it suddenly dawned on me that there would be a finite end to their dominance. There would be limited opportunities for Super Bowl trophies and the clock was ticking.

Did I think that 12 years later they’d still be going strong? No way. Did I think that their successful run would spawn an entire side career of blogging fun for me? Never. All I knew was that the Patriots should’ve beaten the stupid Broncos that night and I was going to hinge on every Patriots game from there on out like it was life or death.

Little did I know but some of the most disappointing moments of the Belichick and Brady reign would continue to come in Denver. For whatever reason, things have just never been easy there but the history is rich with interesting storylines that have spanned a decade-and-a-half.

Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting moments from Tom Brady’s house of horrors in Denver.

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