Patriots quarterback Drake Maye picked up a crucial first down on a run around the left side on a third down after the two minute warning in Sunday’s `10-7 win over the Broncos and no one was more surprised to see it happen than center Garrett Bradbury.
After the Patriots booked their ticket to the Super Bowl, Bradbury said that the play was designed as a handoff to running back Rhamondre Stevenson and that he said “oh my god” when he realized that Maye never handed the ball off.
“After the game, Drake’s like, ‘I debated telling you guys if I was gonna [keep] it or not. But I just decided not to’ . . . I’m expecting Rhamondre to try and hit a hole. And I turn around, Drake’s over there with the ball, and I’m like, ‘Go, go, go!’ Because we didn’t know.’” Bradbury said, via Andrew Callahan of the Boston Herald.
Maye confirmed at his press conference that the play was intended to go as Bradbury expected before his improvisation.
“We were in big personnel,” Maye said. “Running the same deal to the right, little stretch play. At some point, they get lackadaisical and got the chance to get around the edge.”
It was the right play at the right moment, which is something the Patriots hope to keep seeing from Maye through the final whistle of Super Bowl LX.
The Patriots will be celebrating their latest Super Bowl berth in Colorado. For now.
Per the team, the Patriots will fly home on Monday, due to the ongoing snow event in Boston.
Fortunately, there’s a two-week delay until the Super Bowl. The delayed flight won’t be a factor in their preparations for Super Bowl LX.
Wherever they are, they’ll be happy tonight. But they also know this isn’t the end of the road. They’ll have a chance to break a lingering tie with the Steelers to become the first NFL franchise to win seven Super Bowls.
And it was snow in Denver that helped the Patriots hold off the Broncos. Once it started to stick, both offenses were stuck in neutral. The Patriots trusted their defense to keep the Broncos from tying the game — and a blocked field goal ultimately was the difference.
The last time that wide receiver Stefon Diggs played in a conference title game, he stayed on the field in his Bills uniform to watch the Chiefs celebrate in January 2021.
Diggs got to do the celebrating this time. He had five catches for 17 yards in Sunday’s 10-7 win over the Broncos, so it wasn’t the biggest individual day for the wideout but it was still an emotional one after he came back from the torn ACL he suffered while playing for the Texans last season.
“They was calling me washed,” Diggs said in an on-field interview with Cameron Wolfe of NFL Media. “Saying I didn’t have it anymore. I just wanted to prove to myself I am who I say I am. This team took a chance on me. I just wanted to make them proud. I’m thankful.”
Diggs also lost in the conference title game after getting Vikings there with the Minneapolis Miracle against the Saints in January 2018, but he’s never played in a Super Bowl. That will change in a couple of weeks when Diggs gets another chance to pay the Patriots back for rolling the dice on his recovery.
One of the most consequential plays of the AFC Championship Game came on a fourth-and-1 from the New England 14-yard line in the second quarter.
The Broncos were leading 7-0 at the time, but head coach Sean Payton passed on a field goal in order to have backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham throw a pass in an attempt to convert a first down and try for a touchdown. Stidham was pressured and wound up nearly getting his pass intercepted to cap a drive that would move the Broncos closer to the end zone than they would get at any other point in the afternoon.
“I just felt like we had the momentum to get up 14,” Payton said in his postgame press conference. “I felt like we had a good call. . . . I think the feeling was, let’s be aggressive. I was just watching the way our defense was playing.”
The Broncos defense was playing well and it continued to play well once the game became a snowy and windy affair over the final 20 minutes or so. Payton referenced the conditions in his press conference by saying “you don’t know how a game’s gonna unfold” and how valuable three points would turn out to be, although it’s hard to imagine any coach not appreciating a two-score lead in the first half with a backup running the offense.
Denver had other opportunities over the course of the afternoon, but two longer field goal tries were no good and Stidham had the only two turnovers of a game that the Broncos entered with a very slim margin for error. That proved to be too much to overcome and they’ll have to wait a long time before they’ll have a chance to get back on the field.
The AFC Championship Game turned into a snow globe for the final quarter, but the change in conditions wasn’t enough to shake the Patriots out of the lead.
A long Patriots drive to open the second half ended with a field goal that put them up 10-7 and the Broncos weren’t able to get any more points on the board the rest of the way. Their best chance came on a 46-yard field goal try in the fourth quarter, but Patriots defensive lineman Leonard Taylor deflected Wil Lutz’s kick and the Broncos remained behind.
They forced another New England punt and got the ball back with just over three minutes to play, but quarterback Jarrett Stidham was picked off by cornerback Christian Gonzalez. The Patriots faced a third-and-5 after the Broncos used their final timeout just after the two-minute warning and they turned to their MVP to pick up a first down that would allow them to run out the clock.
Quarterback Drake Maye kept the ball and ran around the left side of the line for a seven-yard run. The Patriots took a knee from there and they will move onto Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl LX in two weeks.
Maye’s running was a huge factor throughout the game. He ran six yards for a touchdown after a Stidham fumble in the second quarter and had a 28-yard run to set up Andy Borregales’s field goal in the third quarter. Maye ran for 65 yards and Rhamondre Stevenson had 71 as the Patriots were content to grind things out once the snow and wind kicked up in the final stages.
Stidham finished 17-of-31 for 133 yards, a touchdown and an interception in his first start since the final week of the 2023 season. That was also the last time that he threw a pass and his lack of comfort showed on his fumble, which was a backward pass thrown after a long attempt to evade the New England pass rush. Broncos receivers also failed to hold onto a few catchable balls and head coach Sean Payton made a decision that’s sure to get plenty of coverage in the postgame analysis.
Facing a fourth-and-1 from the Patriots’ 14-yard line while up 7-0 in the second quarter, Payton passed on a field goal to go up two scores and Stidham threw an incompletion on a play that the Patriots blew up from the snap. It was easy to second guess the call at the time and became even easier as the weather became another factor working against the Broncos as the game went on.
Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel made a similar call in the third quarter and officials ruled that Maye was pushed across the line for a first down on a sneak. Replays were inconclusive, but the call on the field stood and the Broncos lost a timeout for their unsuccessful challenge. It was a worthwhile risk given the stakes — the Patriots scored the only points of the second half a few plays later — but the timeout would have come in handy down the stretch.
The Broncos will be left to wonder what might have been had things gone differently on those plays or if Bo Nix were healthy enough to play. The Patriots will be focused on what they need to do to win the seventh Super Bowl in franchise history.
