Sure, Brady has beat Manning — but Denver beats him
So many things seem stacked decidedly in favor of Tom Brady for his 17th career quarterbacking duel with Peyton Manning in Sunday’s AFC title game.
Brady is younger. He has been healthier and has had the decidedly better season. And he generally has gotten the better of Manning over the years.
But Manning and his Denver Broncos could have one significant advantage over Brady’s New England Patriots: the site of the game.
Brady never has fared well in Denver, whether it has been while facing Manning or far less accomplished Broncos’ quarterbacks.
Brady has a career record of 2-6 there, including 0-2 in the postseason. Only one of those games came against Manning, a 26-16 defeat to the Broncos in the AFC championship game in January 2014. Brady also has lost games in Denver in which the Broncos were quarterbacked by Brian Griese, Jake Plummer, Kyle Orton and Brock Osweiler. The opposing quarterbacks in Brady’s only two victories in Denver were Danny Kanell and Tim Tebow.
“They’ve had some good teams when we’ve played out there,” Brady said in his appearance this week on Boston radio station WEEI, according to the Boston Herald. “I didn’t realize we were 2-6. But their crowd gets into it. They’ve got a good team. Just like this year, the crowd will be into it. They’ll have a great team. We’ve got to just play our best. That’s what it comes down to.”
Brady and the Patriots lost to the Osweiler-led Broncos in Denver in November. But Broncos Coach Gary Kubiak went back to Manning as his starter at quarterback for the playoffs, and Manning engineered last Sunday’s triumph at home over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Manning didn’t throw the ball badly in a 21-for-37, 222-yard passing performance that would have looked quite a bit better if his receivers hadn’t been plagued by drops.
“We’ve had trouble with both of them,” Belichick said of Osweiler and Manning during a conference call with reporters this week. “So we’ll have to be ready for both guys. I think Denver did a great job [Sunday] of doing
what they had to do. They made the plays on offense, defense and special teams that they needed to make when they needed to make them, and that was the difference. That’s what good teams do and they did it.”
Brady’s struggles in Denver perhaps are offset by his career-long success against Manning. Brady has won 11 of their 16 matchups.
Manning quite possibly is the greatest regular season quarterback in NFL history, with his record five league most valuable player awards. But Brady is the reigning postseason king, as he seeks a fifth Super Bowl title in tandem with Belichick.
“Even though these games have finality to them that some games in the regular season or preseason don’t have, he approaches it the same way,” Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said in a conference call. “I think he’s a good example for our team and we have a lot of guys that follow that lead, a lot of guys on our team that do that as well.”
The Patriots have only themselves to blame for the venue. They lost their final two regular season games. Winning either one of them would have secured the AFC’s top seed and home-field advantage throughout the conference playoffs for them.
“We’ve had a lot of close games there,” Brady said in this week’s radio interview. “It always comes down to something at the end. We’ve already been out there once this year. I think we learned a lot from that experience and it’s a great defense that we’re playing.”