Broncos have a serious chance with their defense. I just can't wrap my head around their offense though. it's not good.


Patriots.

 Patriots, Broncos on uncharted paths toward Super Bowl

Kerry J. Byrne Wednesday, January 20, 2016

The AFC Championship pits two bitter rivals reaching for the Super Bowl while rewriting the rules of pro football history in the process.



The Broncos will attempt to execute a statistical miracle and win a conference title with the NFL’s most ineffective quarterback. It has never been done.



No team has ever donned a conference crown — let alone won a Super Bowl — with a quarterback who rates the very worst in the game.



Yet the Broncos are betting that gimpy old warhorse Peyton Manning has enough giddy-up left for one or two more gut-check wins before putting him out of his misery. They’re playing with fire, in a sport in which wins and losses move in virtual lock step with a quarterback’s passing efficiency.



The Patriots, meanwhile, are apparently out to prove that the trusty old ground game is a quaint vestige of a sport that no longer exists, gone the way of leather helmets and the flying wedge.



New England is instead staking its championship hopes almost solely on the arm of a quarterback (almost) universally proclaimed these days as the Best Who Ever Lived.



The Patriots are the first and only team in NFL history to consistently win games while showing utter contempt for the ground game. The Patriots last year, for example, beat both the Ravens and Seahawks in the playoffs despite throwing the ball 50 times in each game.



May seem like no big deal. But 50-plus pass attempts are normally a sign of desperation and defeat. For the Patriots, they’re a sign of vanity and victory.



The Tom Brady Patriots are 4-1 in postseason play when attempting 50+ passes. Every other QB in NFL playoff history is a combined 3-28 with 50-plus passes.



That’s right: Brady boasts four 50-plus-pass-attempt wins in his career; every other QB ever has three.



If we include regular season, Brady is the all-time leader in 50-attempt games (24), 50-attempt wins (17) and 50-attempt winning percentage (.708). Nobody is even close. Hall of Famers Warren Moon (5-5) and Dan Marino (5-11) are tied for second with just five 50-attempt wins. Manning is 4-13 when throwing the ball 50-plus times in a game.



Kansas City QB Alex Smith passed the ball 50 times Saturday for the first time in his career. Naturally, he lost.



You can picture Evil Genius Bill Belichick laughing maniacally as his Patriots win games conventional wisdom has long deemed impossible.



One way or the other, no matter who wins Sunday, we’re on the cusp of rare feats of statistical derring-do.



Denver has reached the AFC title tilt with a passing attack that ranked 31st of 32 teams in passer rating (76.3). This is uncharted territory in the statistical history of the NFL, where efficient passing teams have dominated title-game weekend for 50 years:



30-of-50 final fours in the Super Bowl Era featured the top-rated passing attack in football.

47-of-50 final fours boasted at least one of the four most highly rated passing teams (the lone exceptions 1979, 1985 and 1986).

Denver’s No. 31 ranking in passer rating is the worst ever by a final-four contender.

In fairness to the 2015 Broncos, one team among the other 199 conference finalists was worse: the 1979 Buccaneers finished No. 28 of 28 NFL teams that season in passer rating. The Bucs were bounced 9-0 by the Rams in the NFC title game.



The Broncos, in other words, have reached this point against all the statistical odds.



They managed to go 5-3 this year in games in which the other team passed the ball more effectively.



The other finalists (Arizona, Carolina and New England), who lost a total of just eight games this year, were a combined 5-7 when losing the battle of passing efficiency. So even the best teams in football struggle to win unless they win the battle of passing efficiency.



The Broncos are a historic outlier. It’s actually a tribute to the organization and to Manning that they’ve muscled out so many wins with such ineffective play at QB.



Denver’s statistical miracle is even more startling when you look at Manning’s personal performance this season. His 67.9 rating places him 34th and last out of 34 qualifying quarterbacks in 2015 — a season which otherwise produced the highest league-wide passer rating in NFL history (88.4).



Fans often point to Trent Dilfer and the 2000 Ravens and Brad Johnson and the 2002 Buccaneers as teams that won in spite of poor play at quarterback. But those teams ranked 20th and 6th, respectively, in league-wide passer rating.



On the other side of the ball, New England’s contempt for conventional wisdom was on display Saturday, as the Patriots beat the Chiefs 27-20 despite the fact that Brady handed off the ball just eight times. (The Patriots were credited with 14 attempts, but six were Brady runs or kneel-downs.)



Only one other team in postseason history handed the ball off fewer times than the Patriots did last week and won the game: the 2014 Patriots, who beat the Ravens 35-31 despite just seven carries by running backs.



Two teams rewriting the rules of football history Sunday. Only one will have a chance to win the Super Bowl.

www.bostonherald.com/sports/patriots/2016/01/byrne_patriots_broncos_on_uncharted_paths_toward_super_bowl

Pats always defer when they win the toss, weird to see them opt to receive.

3 and out

Let's go D!!!!!!!!!

Peyton chucking it

must have taken his HGH

jebus that was too easy

wtf

nice return by DA

c'mon O

dirty Donks. they got away with one earlier

what the?

dammit 7-6

The Butler didn't do it.

Miller > Brady

damn too easy again

14-6 Donks

Let's Goooooooo

dammit

starting to get it going anyway.

14-9 Donks

Jackson > Brady

lol can't argue

Pats D keeping them in it, Brady needs to step it up