Since his return, they have played one winning team on the road (the Chiefs) and lost 26-16 (and the game really wasn't that close). That is hardly dominant.I think the Patriots win-they've been dominant since Brushci's return.
Plummer rarely has had to take over a game and win it in Denver. They usually do not put him in that position. And while Belichick is great at getting opposing QB's to make mistakes, Shanahan is a master at finding weaknesses on opposing defenses and he will find New England's.Jake has been incredible this year by not making mistakes, but we all know that BB has ways of forcing QBs to screw up. I'd feel much more confident in the prediction if Harrison were in, but I don't see Plummer taking over this game and winning.
Ah, if only it was always that simple. But wait, Tom Brady lost games this year to Jake Delhomme, Trent Green and Drew Brees. How is that possible? I mean, Brady is better than those guys, right? Even Joe Montana, called by many the greatest QB ever, lost his share of playoff games to inferior quarterbacks. The fact remains that while Brady is clearly better than Plummer, it is a TEAM sport and ultimately, I think the Broncos having the better team will result in them winning.Brady> Plummer
Plummer will fail.
Until you multiply it by the Shanahan - Elway factor and divide it by 10-0 in the playoffs Brady plus Belichick having the highest winning percentage of all coaches come postseason play.I love the arguement Plummer<Brady....if you compare full teams
Broncos> Pats
Add in home field advantage.....Broncos win
To be honest, as a Colts fan, Denver is the team that scares me. Because of that, the Colts will have to play Denver again. I really hope that NE wins, because I believe the Colts are due to lose to Denver if they get past Pittsburgh. I remember feeling the same way about Ky in basketball one year when they beat LSU 3 times (twice in reg season and once in SEC tourney), and lost to them in the NCAA tourney.Until they get beat they are the team I would not want to play.
That being said, I would want to be the team to beat them.
The air in Denver will come into effect in a big way come game time though.
New England - 24, Denver 17
I just dont see it happening that Denver beats them.
Denver at home...sure. Devner a better overall team...not so sure. Granted, I'm a Pats homer but this team is not the same team that lost by 8 in Denver earlier this season. I just don't see the Broncos rolling up the kind of rushing yards they did this time around.I'm confident the Pats win, not comfortably, by they win nonetheless.Denver at home with a better overall team than the Pats. Easy vote here.
The Pats played a lot of bad teams since Bruschi returned (NO, Jets twice, Bills, Dolphins twice < Lost one) and Bruschi is injured. He didn't play this weekend and noone will know until gametime if he'll play against the Broncos.But in a homers mind they're not being irrational...they've simply rubbed down some facts and hyped others.
I think the Patriots win-they've been dominant since Brushci's return.
So you're saying the Broncos will win?Let's see, all 4 winning teams this past weekend won the turnover battle.
Plummer vs. Brady..
2006 Turnover Margin rankingsSo you're saying the Broncos will win?Let's see, all 4 winning teams this past weekend won the turnover battle.
Plummer vs. Brady..
That's pretty compelling. Do you have any more meaningless full season statistics you'd like to look at?2006 Turnover Margin rankingsSo you're saying the Broncos will win?Let's see, all 4 winning teams this past weekend won the turnover battle.
Plummer vs. Brady..EN #2 in NFL
NE #22 in NFL
Great post. I think Denver will win, but I think it has a good chance to be one of the best games of the year. As someone else said, "must see".I'm picking the Broncos, which might come as a surprise considering my user name. However, the Pats team that lost 28-20 is not the same one as now...
1. The DL is completely different with Seymour healthy. He missed the first Broncos game. During the 1st 3 games of the year before he got hurt (Pats 2-1), nobody ran on the Pats. Since he's been back, only the Chiefs ran on the Pats and only for the 1st half (and they run on everybody all the time).
2. The ILB combo that started the year of Chad Brown and Monte Beisel was AWFUL. This was the combo that the Broncos ran all over. Since then, the Pats have enjoyed the return of Bruschi, but another move that rarely gets mentioned is the VERY successful transition of Mike Vrabel to ILB. The Vrabel/Bruschi combo (and even Vrabel/Beisel vs. Jax with Bruschi out) has been excellent, and with Seymour's return, the run D has been the league's best over the 2nd half.
3. RCB Duane Starks, everybody's favorite target (Rod Smith torched him repeatedly in the first game), is on IR and has been replaced by rookie Ellis Hobbs who has done an excellent job as the starter. I'd be very surprised if Smith can have a similar game against Hobbs as he did against Starks.
4. Top two RBs Corey Dillon and Kevin Faulk were both out against Denver earlier, putting the running game into the hands of FB Patrick Pass. Pass actually had a decent game vs. Denver, but he's still not the running threat that Dillon is or the pass-catching threat that Faulk is.
There are a handful of other changes, notably the great full-time play of Rosie Colvin at Vrabel's OLB spot and the surprisingly good play from Atrell Hawkins at SS (the 5th starting SS this year as the Pats struggled to find a replacement for the IR'ed Rodney Harrison). There have been recent improvements in play from other starters, notably NT Vince Wilfork and FS Eugene Wilson, but I wouldn't necessarily single them out as I have the first four changes.
Yet I'm still picking the Broncos. The Broncos are an excellent home team as Jake Plummer seems to play mistake-free in Invesco. I suspect the Pats will stop their running game, but I think Jake will be up to the task of taking the game into his own hands. He won't have to score too much, though, because it will be the Broncos D that wins the game. I'll be very surprised if Brady throws a single ball in Champ Bailey's direction as the Pats tend to completely avoid CBs of his caliber; Bailey missed the 2nd half of the earlier game which likely played a key role in the Pats' attempted comeback. However, Darrent Williams is a very good CB at the other spot so the Pats will have to force matchups against the Denver nickle/dime packages. The Broncos have a good front seven and mix their looks well, which clearly threw Brady off for at least the first half. They do a good job blitzing, especially mixing in CB blitzes which definitely gave Brady trouble in the first game. And finally, if there's any place where Brady has the potential to have one of his "off" games, it's on the road. If this game was in Foxboro, Denver wouldn't have a chance as Brady plays mistake-free at home, but his rare 3-4 INT games always come on the road. He already had one of those in KC, so he might not put another one of those games up, but the potential is there, especially against this D.
DEN +6 over the last 6 weeks.Pats were +4 in turnovers the last six weeks and I believe -6 overall. Does anyone have a similar stat for the Broncos?
Sorry. You're obviously right.What happened in 3 of the past 4 years is much more meaningful than anything that actually happened this season.Damn, now I hope DEN doesn't even show up. There's no way they can win. Just forfeit, advise all other teams to do the same, and declare NE the kings of football forever henceforth, and just play the regular season to rake in some $$$.I apologize for being so stupid.That's pretty compelling. Do you have any more meaningless full season statistics you'd like to look at?
The post you clipped - which was all about the Pats' regular season numbers - made yet another comparison of the Patriots' 2005 full season statistics. I think you know better than to think those represent the Patriots' 2005 playoff team. If you don't, then your apology is accepted.I apologize for being so stupid.
Early forecast is for 59 degrees for a high and 39 degrees as a low. Is cold thin air worse than warm thin air? I don't know the answer.I think Denver might actually be the best team in the AFC. Nobody is even talking about them. It is not easy to play at that altitude at this time of the year . . . Denver by 10.
Well, the Pats won't be scoring 10, so.....I've run the numbers... Elam should score 6 points and Vinatieri 4.
Assuming there are no two point conversions or a safety, that means:
Denver will score either 42, 24, or 6 points
New England will score either 28 or 10 points
So we should expect a team on a run of 3 of 4 SBs, w/ 2 in a row, to contnue a run that no team in NFL history has done since the inception of the SB?If you want to use history to drive your judgments, you ought to be picking against NE to get to the big game.I agree with Fred on this one. Hypothetically, if the Pats were 13-3 this year instead of 10-6 and had lost by 8 in Denver this year, would that change anything at this point? No--the Pats would still be playing in Denver and people would still be saying Denver already beat them.
N.E. had a lot of injuries in their other title runs. They had no secondary last year and still won. They are not the same team in the playoffs as they are in the regular season. They know how to win, and most of the time people were saying that they should not beat IND/TEN/PIT/STL/ETC. over the years.
Denver, while a good regular season team this year, has yet to show that they have the chops to win in primtime post-season games (at least not in recent years).
If the Broncos win, hats off to them, they beat a battle tested team. However, people can ramble off stats all day long about what the Pats did early in the season and it won't matter. Regular season stats at this point matter as much as preseason stats did when the season started.
You're right. It's a pretty big stretch to say that the team that has consistantly played better for 16 straight games is the better team. It might just be a statistical quirk.I mean, who is to say that New England is really any better than the Jets? Sure, they played better for a full 16 games, but that might be a total fluke. It's a shame NYJ doesn't have a chance to prove that they're every bit as good as the Pats in the postseason.Denver is the team that scares me the most. I would much rather the Pats play Indy in Indy than Denver in Denver. But regardless of what SSOG, Pony Boy and Ghost Rider say, I just can't buy the idea that Denver is de facto better than the world champs because they had a better regular season.
+0+0Pats were +4 in turnovers the last six weeks and I believe -6 overall. Does anyone have a similar stat for the Broncos?
See above.That's pretty compelling. Do you have any more meaningless full season statistics you'd like to look at?
I'm calling B-freaking-S on the bolded section.In the preseason, starters play for about a quarter, sometimes two. Teams use vanilla offensive gameplans designed not to give anything away. During the regular season, starters play for the entire game. Coordinators scheme aggressively, not holding anything back, except for very very rare occassions late in the season. During the playoffs, starters play for the entire game. Coordinators scheme aggressively, not holding anything back. Oh yeah, I can see how the regular season shows us nothing at all about how a team will perform in the postseason. Yes, the regular season is as different from the postseason as the preseason is from the regular season.I agree with Fred on this one. Hypothetically, if the Pats were 13-3 this year instead of 10-6 and had lost by 8 in Denver this year, would that change anything at this point? No--the Pats would still be playing in Denver and people would still be saying Denver already beat them.
N.E. had a lot of injuries in their other title runs. They had no secondary last year and still won. They are not the same team in the playoffs as they are in the regular season. They know how to win, and most of the time people were saying that they should not beat IND/TEN/PIT/STL/ETC. over the years.
Denver, while a good regular season team this year, has yet to show that they have the chops to win in primtime post-season games (at least not in recent years).
If the Broncos win, hats off to them, they beat a battle tested team. However, people can ramble off stats all day long about what the Pats did early in the season and it won't matter. Regular season stats at this point matter as much as preseason stats did when the season started.
You're right. Historically, the Pats would have no chance to win again if we only look at historical data. But looking at the teams on the field, the Pats look well prepared and a lot more in sync than they did in October or Novemebr--regardless of the stats, the records, the titles, etc.The bottom line for me, anyways, is that no one (yet) has been able to knock the Pats off of their game plan and winning ways from December on in their run of successful seasons (2002 being the exception).So we should expect a team on a run of 3 of 4 SBs, w/ 2 in a row, to contnue a run that no team in NFL history has done since the inception of the SB?If you want to use history to drive your judgments, you ought to be picking against NE to get to the big game.I agree with Fred on this one. Hypothetically, if the Pats were 13-3 this year instead of 10-6 and had lost by 8 in Denver this year, would that change anything at this point? No--the Pats would still be playing in Denver and people would still be saying Denver already beat them.
N.E. had a lot of injuries in their other title runs. They had no secondary last year and still won. They are not the same team in the playoffs as they are in the regular season. They know how to win, and most of the time people were saying that they should not beat IND/TEN/PIT/STL/ETC. over the years.
Denver, while a good regular season team this year, has yet to show that they have the chops to win in primtime post-season games (at least not in recent years).
If the Broncos win, hats off to them, they beat a battle tested team. However, people can ramble off stats all day long about what the Pats did early in the season and it won't matter. Regular season stats at this point matter as much as preseason stats did when the season started.
So how long do you expect the streak to continue? NE in its 3 of 4 year run never had to play in the wildcard weekend. That's a huge advantage that they don't have this year.One thing that is as certain about sports streaks as death or taxes - streaks end. Always.You're right. Historically, the Pats would have no chance to win again if we only look at historical data. But looking at the teams on the field, the Pats look well prepared and a lot more in sync than they did in October or Novemebr--regardless of the stats, the records, the titles, etc.The bottom line for me, anyways, is that no one (yet) has been able to knock the Pats off of their game plan and winning ways from December on in their run of successful seasons (2002 being the exception).So we should expect a team on a run of 3 of 4 SBs, w/ 2 in a row, to contnue a run that no team in NFL history has done since the inception of the SB?If you want to use history to drive your judgments, you ought to be picking against NE to get to the big game.I agree with Fred on this one. Hypothetically, if the Pats were 13-3 this year instead of 10-6 and had lost by 8 in Denver this year, would that change anything at this point? No--the Pats would still be playing in Denver and people would still be saying Denver already beat them.
N.E. had a lot of injuries in their other title runs. They had no secondary last year and still won. They are not the same team in the playoffs as they are in the regular season. They know how to win, and most of the time people were saying that they should not beat IND/TEN/PIT/STL/ETC. over the years.
Denver, while a good regular season team this year, has yet to show that they have the chops to win in primtime post-season games (at least not in recent years).
If the Broncos win, hats off to them, they beat a battle tested team. However, people can ramble off stats all day long about what the Pats did early in the season and it won't matter. Regular season stats at this point matter as much as preseason stats did when the season started.
When a team can get the Patriots scrambling in the post season like they were early in this season, then the Pats will lose. It sure sounds easy. But teams up until now have had a tremendous time doing so.
01: Ended with 8 wins in a row
03: Ended with 15 wins in a row
04: Won 11 of last 12
05: Won 7 of last 8 (Miami doesn't count as they intended to lose)