Patriots (17-3) beat the Denver Broncos 10-7<\/a> on Sunday in the AFC championship game to advance to their 12th Super Bowl.<\/p>\nThey\u2019ll face the winner of the NFC championship game between the Los Angeles Rams (14-5) and Seattle Seahawks (15-3).<\/p>\n
Either way, it\u2019ll be a rematch.<\/p>\n
Brady led the Patriots to a 20-17 victory over the heavily favored \u201cGreatest Show on Turf\u201d St. Louis Rams on Feb. 3, 2002, for the franchise\u2019s first Super Bowl title.<\/p>\n
And the Patriots also defeated Sean McVay\u2019s Los Angeles Rams 13-3 on Feb. 3, 2019, to capture the franchise\u2019s sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy.<\/p>\n
New England edged Pete Carroll\u2019s Seahawks 28-24 on Feb. 1, 2015, when Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson\u2019s pass from the 1-yard line.<\/p>\n
Maye scored on a 6-yard touchdown run in the second quarter after a critical turnover by Jarrett Stidham, who made his fifth career start filling in for injured Broncos quarterback Bo Nix.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pats are back, baby,\u201d Maye said. \u201cNow, gotta win one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playing through a snowstorm in the second half, Maye only threw for 86 yards and ran for 65. Stidham had 133 yards passing and one TD, one interception and one costly fumble.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old Maye, a finalist for AP NFL MVP and Offensive Player of the Year, will become the second-youngest QB to start a Super Bowl behind Dan Marino. He\u2019s the fourth second-year QB in the past seven years to lead his team to the NFL title game. Patrick Mahomes (2018) won it while Joe Burrow (2021) and Brock Purdy (2023) lost.<\/p>\n
Vrabel, who won three Super Bowls as a linebacker for the Patriots in the 2000s, turned the team around in his first season as coach. New England went from 4-13 last year under Jerod Mayo to 14-3.<\/p>\n
Vrabel is trying to become the first person to win a Super Bowl as a head coach and player for the same team. Tom Flores, Mike Ditka, Tony Dungy and Doug Pederson won Super Bowls playing for one team and coaching another.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how proud I am to be associated with these guys and this organization,\u201d said Vrabel, who is a finalist for AP NFL Coach of the Year. \u201cI won\u2019t win it. It\u2019ll be the players that\u2019ll win the game, I promise you. It won\u2019t be me that\u2019ll win it and I promise you I\u2019ll do everything that I can and our staff to have them ready for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
No team has played in the Super Bowl more than the Patriots, who are 6-5. They\u2019re tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most wins.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a long road back to the top for New England, which came off consecutive four-win seasons and only had one winning season after Brady\u2019s departure in 2020.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NFL<\/a><\/p>\nRob Maaddi, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drake Maye, Mike Vrabel and a stifling defense have the New England Patriots back in the Super Bowl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-433506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}