In Denver this 45-10 defeat will undoubtedly be remembered in years to come as the Saturday Night Massacre.
And guess what? With the elimination of the Saints, Green Bay is the only team left in the tournament whose calling card is offense. The Patriots could be riding the Duck Boats with people still wondering how a defense like theirs could possibly be good enough to win a championship.
The Big D was certainly up to the task of stopping the Broncos, however. The quarterback who averaged 31 yards a completion last week once again looked like the guy who was lucky to complete a 5-yard pass during the month of December, and it didn’t help that his receivers had major cases of the dropsies on the rare occasions he did deliver the mail in the right time and place.
There is no real way to judge the defense against a team as pathetic as the Broncos were on offense, but it would be impossible to heap too much praise on a Tom Brady-led offense that tore into the Broncos for 42 points in the first 33:14 of the game.
They were certainly aided by some juicy field position, but what Brady did with what he was given was merciless. None of the first six TD drives took longer than 3:35 to execute, and the longest one took eight plays. It was bang-bang-bang right from the start, as the Patriots took the opening kickoff and entered the Denver end zone five plays later, the result of a 7-yard touchdown pass from Brady to Wes Welker.
Yes, that’s correct. The Patriots actually had the ball first. Denver won the toss and elected to defer. The Patriots never have the ball first. Brady treated this circumstance like the belated Christmas present it was, orchestrating an 80-yard drive highlighted by a 43-yard run on a handoff to erstwhile tight end Aaron Hernandez.
Sure. Hand the ball to a motivated Tom Brady, who only has had 12 months to smolder over losing a second consecutive first-round home playoff game. I thought someone said John Fox was a smart coach.
