DL Leonard Taylor III partially blocks a Broncos field goal in the fourth quarter of the Patriots 10-7 win.
Patriots wide out Mack Hollins scampers for 31 yards on a pass play from Drake Maye in Denver.
Seahawks wide receiver, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, caught 10 passes for 153 yards in a 31-27 win over the Rams for the NFC Crown.
Rashid Shaheed caught this 51-yard bomb from Sam Darnold, setting up Seattle’s first score of the game.
The New England Patriots are back where many of their fans feel they belong, on the Super Bowl stage, following their “not pretty, but effective” 10-7 victory over the top-seeded Denver Broncos in the snowy and wind-swirling conditions before a raucous sellout crowd of 76,000 at Empower Field at Mile High Stadium.
The Patriots completed a perfect 9-0 road record (a first in NFL history) on their way to the premier event of the National Football League. The journey of this Patriots football team is one of toughness and determination following back-to-back 4-13 seasons under Bill Belichick and Jerod Mayo. The Pats were favored in this game due to the Broncos’ loss of their star quarterback, Bo Nix, to injury in their playoff win over the Buffalo Bills. Denver had to play backup quarterback (and former Patriot) Jarrett Stidham, who had not started an NFL game in two years.
This game got off to a rocky start for the Pats, as Stidham hit Marvin Mims on a 54-yard strike in the early stages of the first quarter. He followed that up with a 7-yard scoring pass to Courtland Sutton to give his team a 7-0 advantage. This game turned to the Patriots favor in the second quarter, when Broncos coach Sean Payton decided to “go for it” on a 4th-and-1 situation instead of kicking a short field goal that would have put his team up by a 10-0 score.
The Patriots defense, the true stars of this team the entire season, rose up to stop Denver’s momentum and dominated the contest from that moment to its conclusion. Coach Mike Vrabel: “It took our defense a while to settle down, but once it did, it dominated the rest of the game. That unit was truly magnificent today.”
Meanwhile, the New England offense struggled under pressure from the Broncos defense.
Second-year quarterback Drake Maye, coming off less-than-spectacular playoff performances against the Los Angeles Chargers and Houston Texans in the first two postseason games of his young career (six turnovers), avoided the major mistakes he committed in those games by playing mistake-free football in this all-important game. And his stellar defensive unit made “the play” that turned the game to the visitors’ favor.
In the waning minutes of the second quarter, the Pats defense forced Stidham into a critical turnover (on a play ruled a backward pass), which was recovered on the Denver 12-yard line.
For the game, the Pats defense pressured Stidham on 43% of drop backs 94-12, (9 yards, 3 sacks) Maye tied the game on a 6-yard touchdown run. The two teams missed field goals as the first half ended with the score tied at 7 apiece.
After receiving the second-half kickoff, Maye led his team on a nine-minute drive, including a 28-yard scramble that set up the 23-yard field goal by Andy Borregalis, which proved to be the margin of victory. An interception by Pats defensive back Christian Gonzalez stopped a late Broncos drive (vindication for being burned on the Mims catch and the Sutton touchdown). Maye would use his legs multiple times (10 rushes for 65 huge yards, 10-21, 86 yards, sacked 5 times), including the first down that put the game away.
This game was dominated by defense, and on this day, the New England defense showed its mettle time after time as the team gained its first victory ever over the Broncos in Mile High Stadium. The team punching its ticket to Super Bowl 60 is something that only the most optimistic Patriots fan could have dreamed of coming into this NFL season. That dream is now a reality as the New England Patriots are headed to the Super Bowl at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on February 8.
The Pats opponent in Super Bowl 60 will be the Seattle Seahawks, 31-27 winners over the Los Angeles Rams in the National Football Conference title game played in Seattle. This game featured several offensive plays by both teams and some questionable game-time management by Los Angeles. With the Rams holding a 13-10 lead and the ball in their possession with less than two minutes left in the half, they failed to manage the clock and turned the ball back over to the Seahawks. Quarterback Sam Darnold drove his team 74 yards in 34 seconds, hitting wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba on passes of 42 and 14 yards — the 14-yarder producing a touchdown — that put his team in front by a 17-13 count at halftime. Njigba totaled 153 yards on 10 catches for the game.
A fumbled punt by Xavier Smith set up a Darnold-to-Jake Bobo 17-yard score that upped the count to 24-13 at 12:02 of the third quarter. The Rams marched right back as Matthew Stafford hit Devante Adams on two big pass completions to cut the deficit to 24-20. Back came the Seahawks on a scoring drive that culminated in a 13-yard pass from Darnold to former Ram Cooper Kupp.
The Seahawks stopped the Rams on their next possession, only to see defensive back Riq Woolen flagged for an unsportsmanlike penalty for baiting the Rams sideline after a 3rd-down stop. This was a silly, selfish play that gave the Rams a first down on 4th-and-12. They took advantage on the very next play as Stafford hit receiver Puka Nacua, who was covered by Woolen on a 34-yard scoring pass that put the Rams back into the game at 31-27. The Rams got the ball back and drove to the Seahawks’ 6-yard line before being stopped on 4th down.
Darnold led his team to two late first downs to seal the victory, setting the stage for the team’s fourth Super Bowl trip. It will be the 12th time the New England Patriots have played in the Super Bowl and the first time in 11 years that Malcolm Butler sealed the Patriots’ win against the Hawks.