The Denver Broncos’ playoff run ended at two games on a chilly night in Foxboro, as the New England Patriots earned their first playoff win since losing to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII. The Patriots jumped out to a quick 14-0 lead, the Broncos cut that to 14-7, and then New England resumed scoring and kept scoring, taking a 35-7 halftime lead en route to a 45-10 final.
Really, this game turned into a referendum on the two quarterbacks. Tom Brady was, for most of the game, absolutely phenomenal, completing over three-quarters of his 34 attempts for 363 yards and six touchdowns. The Broncos pass rush that disrupted Ben Roethlisberger in the wild card round was missing in action virtually all night, not bringing Brady down once and rarely troubling him. Like so many other Patriots opponents this season, the Broncos couldn’t cover Rob Gronkowski, who had ten catches for 145 yards and three of Brady’s touchdowns, or Aaron Hernandez, who had four catches for 55 yards and a score of his own plus over 60 yards on the ground.
Tim Tebow, though, showed hardly any of the magic that produces last week’s win over the Steelers. In fact, in the third quarter of tonight’s game, when Brady had six touchdown passes, Tebow had only three completions. He would finish with nine, on 26 attempts, and too often he seemed to not remember John Elway’s admonition to throw the ball, allowing a sub-par Patriots pass rush to sack him five times. The occasionally potent Denver rushing attack was hardly any more productive, as Tebow struggled at times to make the right read on option plays, normally getting rid of the ball too quickly.
The result? A game that started off and mostly remained tremendously uncompetitive. It was virtually over at halftime, and nothing happened in the second half to change that. The Broncos get to go home and figure out how to improve in the offseason,while the Patriots now get to watch tomorrow’s Ravens-Texans contest knowing the winner will be traveling to Gillette Stadium next Sunday.
