| LudicrousSpeed said: Wow, what a masterful game plan by the Broncos defense. Play someone deep, rush only your three or four linemen, and make Brady dink and dunk down the field against aggressive man coverage. And thanks to enormous pressure, it worked. Sure, the Pats line was beat up. But the Broncos best two linemen are banged up (one out for the year) and their QB is playing with a bad foot. Injuries happen. That was the 16-0 Super Bowl all over again. Patriots just too damned proud/stubborn to make adjustments on offense. Keep a back or a TE in to block. Otherwise Brady will just get teed off on over and over and that's what happened. No line in the world will stop a ferocious pass rush like that when there is 0 risk of a run. Manning again has 0 turnovers. Only bad thing about his game yesterday was taking a couple sacks where he could have easily thrown it away. This is exactly why Kubiak made the switch. Had Os been in there with a struggling run game and little protection, who knows what kind of Brady-like INT's he throws. Peyton moves to 3-2 against Brady in the playoffs, which is a far far cry from the rhetoric you constantly hear from experts. The team will show up this time ready to play after that SB 48 fiasco. Panthers have a strong defense too, it should be a good game. |
Couple of things.
Officially, for what it's worth, Manning did have a turn over. The backwards pass/lateral that led to New England's first touchdown was credited as a fumble for Manning.
Keeping a back in there might have helped, but the biggest problem was that the offensive line just flat out didn't block people, especially on the edge. Denver's rushers just blew by New England's tackles all day long. There was one point where I remember Cameron Flemming just standing straight up and barely reaching for Von Miller as the latter ran right by unimpeded. I'm not going to even remotely blame this on injuries; with the exception of the Chiefs' game, this is the healthiest the O-line's been all year, and they played absolutely horrible. At times, it looked like they barely even cared about protecting Brady (who isn't without his share of blame either).
I think the rhetoric will still stick around unless Manning wins the Super Bowl, because his playoff record is still pretty meh altogether. Brady's 21-8 all time, while Manning is 13-13 with some really, really awful performances on his record (2004 at New England, 2013 against Seattle, 2014 vs. Indy). If the Broncos win, that narrative will certainly change, but if they don't, I have a feeling we'll be hearing much of the same talk we did after Super Bowl 48.
