New England Patriots at the Denver Broncos
Sunday January 19th 3:00 P.M. CBS
The New England Patriots keep finding ways to win games and as of late that has been a heavy dose of running and a stout defense which is exactly how they beat the Colts on Saturday night by the score 43-22. The late season emergence of Legarette Blount has been huge; his best games of the 2013 season have been the week 17 win against the Bills and this past weekend’s game against the Colts in which he ran for 166 yards and 4 scores. You add that in with Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen that makes a great trio of running backs that can be utilized in multiple ways. The three headed rushing attack reminds me of the 2007 Giants who had a similar running attack and used it to go all the way to the Super Bowl and beat the Patriots and their high scoring offense, if the Patriots can run the ball and play hard nose defense they will beat the Broncos. It is important to run the ball as much as possible against the Broncos who can score at will as they showed all season long en route to a historic record breaking season by Peyton Manning. The Patriots also have a victory against the Broncos this season when the Patriots trailed 24-0 at the half and won 34-31 in overtime after making a comeback in the second half which saw the Patriots rattle of 31 unanswered points. The Patriots must run the ball and play solid defense to win this game, because by doing that they control the clock and keep Manning and his offense off of the field.
The Denver Broncos offense has been the talk of the NFL all season long and for good reason, they set the all time record for points in a season, Peyton Manning now owns the record for most passing touchdowns in a single season and also the most passing yards in one season. Manning has Eric Decker, Julius Thomas, Demaryius Thomas and Wes Welker to throw to which makes it easy for this team to put up points in bunches. One thing I noticed against the Chargers last week was that Manning was able to throw the ball in running situations at the end of the game to get the first downs to kill the clock, that is something that very few quarterbacks in the NFL can do. The Broncos will probably keep throwing the ball this game not just because of the weapons they have but also because the Patriots have been running the ball very well and will keep Manning off the field. When it comes to playing the Broncos you have to run the ball and keep that offense on the sideline, Manning can go match the points the Patriots put up and he has had some classic games against Tom Brady and the Patriots so there is no reason to think this will not be another one.
To be completely honest I do not see the Patriots spotting the Broncos 24 points to start this game, they have been better with the fumbling and also have been very stout on defense getting takeaways as shown last week when they picked Andrew Luck off 4 times. I think this game will go down to the wire and will be decided during the last three minutes of the game, this will in fact be another classic Brady vs Manning match up and will mark the third time they face off in the AFC title game against one another.
Prediction:
The Patriots running game will help set up the passing game and the defense will hold strong, Patriots win 35-31
No comments:
Post a Comment