DEFEATING NEW ENGLAND COULD SPARK NEW LIFE
Why facing New England is a barometer for a Broncos team on the brink
As the Broncos took a beating in Philadelphia on Sunday, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was napping peacefully in a hammock on a beach in the Bahamas, getting the most out of his bye week before traveling to Colorado.
Though he told Boston-area WEEI radio that he included some film study of the Broncos on his tropical recess, Brady really didn’t need to witness the team’s latest disaster to understand what he’ll be facing Sunday in Denver.
The Broncos are on the brink, still looking for answers to their myriad problems and still hoping they have time to save their sinking ship. And in recent seasons, their meetings with the Patriots have been the tipping points, either resurrecting a year in question or breaking a Denver team teetering on the edge.
“We’ve had a tough stretch here, so it’s a perfect occurrence to play a team like this,” Broncos coach Vance Joseph said. “It’s the best of the best, so for us to get our good feeling back, it’s the perfect opponent, and on national TV. So I’m very excited for Sunday night.”
Denver’s narrow window to right the season could close Sunday at the hands of Brady and the NFL’s top offense. Or it may reopen, inviting renewed hope and creating a foundation of change for a team sorely in need.
“The best time to turn it around is against a team like this that’s not going to beat themselves,” running back C.J.
Anderson said. “They’re going to be very disciplined, very detailed and focused on their jobs and we can definitely take something from that.”
The power of the Pats in Denver is real, and the Broncos don’t need to look too far back for reminders.
In 2015, with quarterback Peyton Manning nursing a foot injury, Brock Osweiler guided the Broncos to a 30-24 victory in Denver that included 179 yards rushing and the game-winning score on a run check in overtime. The loss was the first for the Patriots that season and tilted the scale in Denver’s favor as they embarked on a Super Bowl run.
Two months later, in the AFC championship game in Denver, the Broncos’ defense pummeled Brady with 17 hits and four sacks to punch their ticket to Super Bowl 50.
But in Week 15 of 2016, the Broncos experienced the other extreme. Brady and the Patriots’ seemingly broke a tenuous Broncos locker room as frustration and losses piled up. Denver’s defense held Brady to only 188 yards passing and zero touchdowns, but its offense couldn’t find the end zone or snuff out the victory.
The Patriots clinched the AFC East with a 16-3 victory that Sunday. The Broncos went on to lose a third straight game, against Kansas City, and watched their playoff hopes crumble.
“Anytime you lose a game to the Patriots or a rival game, everybody is frustrated,” cornerback Chris Harris said afterward. “We feel like we played almost good enough defense to win that game. I don’t know if I’ve ever kept Brady under 16 points, and we did that today.”
What Harris didn’t reveal at the time were the rising tensions between cornerback Aqib Talib and offensive tackle Russell Okung that went down minutes earlier in the locker room.
Brady and the Patriots — perhaps simply being Brady and the Patriots — have a knack for tilting the scale in Denver.
“A lot of times, it’s not even who you play; it’s when you play them,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick told local media this week. “When you play a team at one point in the season and when you play a team at another point in the season, you’re not really getting the same team. That could actually be from week to week, too.
“But certainly teams go through phases where they’re playing well and then sometimes things happen and it drops off a little bit, or vice versa, a team looks like they’re not. The Chargers last week — they lost their first games and then came back and played very well and are playing really good football. To me, it seems like that way every year. It seems like that way every week, to be honest with you. It doesn’t really matter who you play.”
By that standard, the Patriots probably believe they’re arriving in Denver at the right time. The Broncos are reeling after a difficult three-game stretch on the road.
But the Broncos are heading into Sunday with a similar belief, that the timing and location are on their side. They’re finally home. And home has historically been good to them when facing the Patriots.
“I would like to think that. I would like to say we beat the Patriots, let’s go win these other seven games for a playoff berth. But that’s not realistically how the NFL works,” outside linebacker Shane Ray said. “Every week, you have to come out and win every game. Every game is going to come down to the fourth quarter. So this game right here is our sole focus, on trying to dominate this team and get this win. If we can get this win, then we can move to the next week and we build on our morale. But we have to put everything under a microscope right now. What can we do right now to fix this season. Next week, we can’t worry about that. Right now is the most important thing.”
In 31 meetings in Denver, including the postseason, the Broncos are 21-10 against their AFC East rival. Brady is 7-9 all time against the Broncos and 3-7 when playing them in Denver.
But when the Broncos prepare to face New England, those numbers are rarely considered — if ever. The Patriots’ consistency and winning history take precedence. The notion that they do have the power to make or break a season, even a team, is remembered.
“Every game is important,” Anderson said. “This is just as important as the last one. We definitely want to stop the streak that we’re on, losing-wise, and who better to do it against than the Patriots on ‘Sunday Night Football’? This is like a division game for me. I’ve played them so many times. They know me, I know them and the way they play the game, the way they approach it, how they’re coached — it’s perfect for us.”