The Denver Broncos faced a juggernaut
Coming into the game, all anybody could talk about was Tom Brady and the New England offense. How would the Broncos stop Brady? Who would cover Gronk? Are the Patriots unbeatable with Julian Edelman?
Coming out of the game, it looks like we should have spent a lot more time talking about the New England defense.
While the Broncos defense took home the crown on Sunday, the Patriots weren’t far behind. In fact, they were outstanding, and we probably shouldn’t have expected otherwise. For the season, the only team that graded out higher than the New England Patriots on defense (194.5) was the Denver Broncos (252.2), and it looked that way in the AFC Championship game.
Of the 18 Patriots defenders that got on the field, only one, Malcom Brown (-0.4), finished the game with a negative grade, and there were 10 that graded out higher than +1.0 (a green grade). That’s unbelievably impressive. Essentially, that means that nobody on the Patriots defense had a bad day.
The Broncos can’t even say that.
While the Broncos finished the day with a higher cumulative grade than the Patriots, they had seven defenders finish with a negative grade, including three (Brandon Marshall, Danny Trevathan and Shane Ray) who finished under -1.0 (a red grade). Now, they also had 10 who finished with green grades, and Miller, Ware and Wolfe all finished with higher grades than New England’s best defender (Dont’a Hightower; 5.8), but that shouldn’t undersell the Patriots’ performance.
All that is to say that it shouldn’t be surprising that the Broncos offense slowed down at times; they were facing what just might be the second best defense in the NFL.
Again, all that matters, and all that will continue to matter, is that the Broncos score one more point than their opponent. Luckily, they’ve become very good at doing just that.
