Patriots Are Back In The AFC Championship

By Steve Atkinson 

The Patriots are now headed to Denver to play the Broncos in the AFC Championship game. I’ll get into the Broncos a little later in the week, but for now, what a season this has been. All the talk about the weak schedule was valid, but they took advantage of it, played a tough defense, and are now headed to the AFC Championship game.

Patriots Advance To AFC Championship

One thing about Sunday’s win over Houston was that when Stroud made a mistake, his head was down, sulking on the sideline. When Maye made a mistake, his head was up, and he moved on to the next play. You never saw Maye with his head down or sulking, and he didn’t even have a good game at all. But when it mattered most, Maye delivered to put the game away. Here was Mike Vrabel after the game.

They’re playing well together. I feel like they’re complementing each other, and our turnovers are created by more than one guy. There’s some great efforts. But it’s somebody tipping a pass or it’s somebody that’s putting pressure that’s usually helping — or Zak’s dialing something up that kind of changes the look. We’re taking advantage of our opportunities. And that’s what it’s going to take in the playoffs, is you’ve got to take care of the ball and turn it over.

The Patriots beat the team with the hardest strength of schedule yesterday. I’m sure they’ll still be hate because Nico Collins didn’t play but Stroud isn’t good and the defense carried them all year. If Aaron Rodgers was mobile the Steelers would’ve won last week. Drake Maye is was more mobile and can get out of the way. He played well when it mattered the most.

We talk about not going in the blender. And I think it’s hard. They put pressure on us, and we know we’ve got to take care of the ball. Drake knows that. But to be able to stay the course and to trust Kayshon and give him a great ball that was him or nobody, and those guys have kind of done that all year — when we needed a play, they’ve been able to do that for us

It’s all coming up Patriots with Nico Collins out then Bo Nix out for the AFC Championship game and having to go up against former Patriots backup Jarrett Sidham. It doesn’t get any better than that. The Patriots should move on to the Super Bowl Sunday.