Patriots celebrate annual AFC East sovereignty — and they’re just getting started
COMMENTARY
It’s not like having Rob Gronkowski would have hurt.
Then again, it’s not like the Patriots really needed him in Denver on Sunday.
Exactly five years to the day that New England last won at Sports Authority Field at Mile High (opposing quarterback, Tim Tebow, if that makes it seem even further back in time), the New England Patriots took another step toward Lombardi No. 5 with a smothering, 16-3 win over the defending Super Bowl champion Broncos.
“It ended up being enough today,” Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said while praising the defensive effort of his team, while briefly bemoaning a lack of production on offense.
Whatever. T-shirts on sale at the Pro Shop now. They should be in fashion for about four weeks, or at least until the Patriots seal up the Lamar Hunt Trophy en route to another Super Bowl.
How much AFC East paraphernalia can one person own anyway?
With the victory, their 12th of the season, the Patriots clinched the AFC East for an eighth-straight year — a new NFL record — and also earned a first-round postseason bye, with only home-field advantage left to play for against the New York Jets on Christmas Eve at Gillette Stadium. Ho, Ho, Hum.
That’s now three wins in a row for New England without its most important offensive weapon (next to Thomas Edward Brady, of course), a division title and a bye week wrapped up in the time since Gronkowski has been lost for the season with back surgery. The Patriots have allowed just 36 points over those three games, thanks to a defense that has emerged slowly, surely, and definitely into a dangerous component come January. If the win over the Baltimore Ravens last Monday was their coming out party, then their three-point allowance in Denver was the Patriots’ official invitation to the rest of the playoff field: “See ya at Gillette. We’ll be waiting.”
“I thought we deserved to win. I thought we made enough plays to win,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said. “Good, solid team win. This team did a good job this week.”
Not to channel every ounce of yee-ha bravado a win like that tends to generate but anything but a Super Bowl title should be considered a disappointment with this team, particularly with the way the defense has matured and with Brady destined for the NFL MVP award, even at the age of 39 and having missed the first quarter of the season because he hid his phone in the Charles River or something.
Gronkowski would be nice. He’s a dynamic loss for the Patriots.
But Sunday’s win once again proved just how integral Julian Edelman (six catches, 75 yards) is to the offense, the most important receiver at Brady’s disposal. It’s easy to remember that the Patriots were 9-0 last season before losing Edelman, and went only 3-4 the rest of the way, gagging away home-field advantage in process.
That’s not the case one year later.
In 2015, Edelman returned in time for playoff games against the Kansas City Chiefs and the Broncos, but caught just 17 balls for 153 yards and no touchdowns. One hundred of those yards came against the Chiefs, as the Broncos rendered him useless with a relentless quarterback attack.
On Sunday? Nope.
If this isn’t the game that finally convinces someone, somewhere, that offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia deserves a statue somewhere along Route One, then what performance might?
“They played great,” Brady said. “We ran the ball so well, both LeGarrette [Blount] and Dion [Lewis], pass protection was great. They’ve been doing a great job all season, so we’ve got to keep it going.”
The last time the Patriots were here, the offensive line crumbled and Brady scrambled on runs to nowhere. On Sunday, that line gave Brady time, even if he struggled out of the gate, and made enough holes for Lewis (career-high 97 yards rushing) and Blount.
“They’re a good run defense,” said Belichick, obviously glossing over the fact that the Broncos came into the game 29th in the league against the rush, which, in reality, makes them not a good run defense. “We just tried to bang it out. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but it what’s it needed to be. It needed to be a lot of tough yards, and that’s what we got from Dion and LG.”
There’s no doubt now, after back-to-back defensive spotlights, and a running game that maintained consistency against the Broncos, a team that aspect of the Patriots absolutely had to have shine against. The Patriots are the most complete team in the AFC, bound for the Super Bowl, where they could face the Dallas Cowboys, the Green Bay Packers, Seattle Seahawks, or…gulp, the New York Giants.
For now, they’ll just take the division crown.
“It’s a huge accomplishment,” Belichick said. “That’s a lot of hard work going back to the offseason program, OTAs, training camp, a lot of tough games. We’ve won a lot of games on the road (7-0), which is always hard to do. This is another one. We still have more we can accomplish, and our goals can now be reset, but this is the first one, to win the division.”
Seeing how losing home-field advantage thwarted the Patriots’ chances at making the Super Bowl two straight years, you’d figure that would be the next priority. Well, it is, and it isn’t, according to safety Devin McCourty.
“Nothing is more important than us just going out there and playing well,” he said. “We’ve got two more games left, we want to go out there and play well both of these games and just keep it going. If we don’t play well and we still win, it’s just not a good feeling. So, I think the key for us is to stick to the blueprint.”
The Jets come to Foxborough on Christmas Eve. The Patriots travel to Miami on New Year’s Day. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if that game means nothing for the Patriots, and everything to the Dolphins and Broncos in their quests for a wild card berth?
The Broncos’ playoff chances, and the odds that scary defense might show up in Foxborough next month might all be in Belichick’s dastardly hands.
Not that it would matter. The Patriots are going back to the Super Bowl soon enough.
Only weeks after everybody challenged how impossible it might be without Rob Gronkowski?
Nope.
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