DENVER\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Drake Maye ran for 68 yards and threw for 86 in sloppy, snowy conditions and scored New England\u2019s only touchdown on a six-yard keeper, propelling the Patriots to their 12th Super Bowl with a 10-7 win over the Denver Broncos on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Christian Gonzalez intercepted Jarrett Stidham, starting in place of an injured Bo Nix, at New England\u2019s 36 with 2:11 remaining, and the Patriots (17-3) iced their first playoff win in Denver when Maye ran for seven yards on third and five from his 41.<\/p>\n
In Mike Vrabel\u2019s first season as their coach, the Patriots became the third team in the Super Bowl era to win a conference championship with 10 points or fewer. Buffalo beat Denver 10-7 in the 1991 AFC title game, and the Rams beat Tampa Bay 9-0 in the 1979 NFC championship game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just proud of this team,\u201d Maye said. \u201cDon\u2019t have many words. Just thankful for this team. Love each and every one of them. It took everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Broncos (15-4) finished one step shy of fulfilling Sean Payton\u2019s preseason prediction of a trip to Super Bowl 60.<\/p>\n
Both kickers missed two field goals in the frigid conditions with Denver\u2019s Wil Lutz and New England\u2019s Andy Borregales wide on long tries just before the snow came in at halftime.<\/p>\n
The Patriots fell behind 7-0 but had a key fourth-down stop near their own end zone to spark the comeback. Their victory was their 40th in the playoffs, breaking a tie with the San Francisco 49ers for the most in NFL history.<\/p>\n
It was sunny at kickoff with a temperature of 26 degrees, but by halftime the snowflakes began falling and grounds crews had to use snowblowers to mark the hash marks and yard lines by the fourth quarter, when it was 16 degrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat an atmosphere out here,\u201d Maye said. \u201cBattle of the elements. Love this team. How about the defense? I love each and every one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
After gaining just 72 yards in the first half, the Patriots opened the second half in swirling snow with a 16-play, 64-yard drive that ate up 9\u00bd minutes and ended with a 23-yard field goal by Borregales that gave New England its first lead at 10-7.<\/p>\n
The Patriots managed just four first downs in the first half, punting five times and missing a field goal. But they capitalized on a short field when New England\u2019s defense set up Maye at the Denver 12 with a takeaway, and Maye took it in from six yards out to tie it at 7 at halftime.<\/p>\n
As he stepped in for the injured Nix (ankle surgery), Stidham\u2019s first completion since the 2023 regular-season finale was a 52-yard dart to Marvin Mims Jr. to New England\u2019s seven-yard line that set up Courtland Sutton\u2019s six-yard touchdown catch to start the scoring.<\/p>\n
The Broncos reached New England\u2019s 14 early in the second quarter, but Payton decided to go for it \u2014 and Stidham\u2019s throw to R.J. Harvey was incomplete on fourth and one. <\/p>\n
Instead of going up double digits, the Broncos were left clinging to a 7-0 lead, and Elijah Ponder recovered Stidham\u2019s backward pass at the Denver 12, setting up the tying touchdown two plays later.<\/p>\n
Stidham, who was drafted by the Patriots in 2019, made his first start since the 2023 regular-season finale. The Broncos were the only team in the league that didn\u2019t give their backup quarterback any snaps or handoffs the last two seasons.<\/p>\n
Nix, who had 11 game-winning drives in his first two seasons, got hurt on Denver\u2019s final drive in overtime against Buffalo last week. But he didn\u2019t come out of the game and the extent of his injury \u2014 a broken right ankle \u2014 wasn\u2019t known until he went for X-rays after the 33-30 win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Drake Maye ran for 68 yards and threw for 86 in sloppy, snowy conditions and scored New England\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[74113,11594,11544,60491,30313,42921,46866,71448,48,52,51,47,50,49,63538,72268,17322,54550,11191,427,1539],"class_list":["post-149529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-andy-borregales","tag-broncos","tag-denver","tag-drake-maye","tag-field-goal","tag-first-season","tag-halftime","tag-jarrett-stidham","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-new-england","tag-nix","tag-patriots","tag-sean-payton","tag-super-bowl-lx","tag-team","tag-yard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}