Pats Dominate Broncos

This year's regular season installment of the Brady/Manning Bowl went decisively to the New England Patriots, who claimed first place in the AFC with a dominant 43-21 win over the Denver Broncos, at Gillette Stadium.

New England's defense gave up almost 500 yards of total offense on the day, including 429 passing yards. While they often bent, they managed not to break and only surrendered three scores to the normally overpowering Denver offense led by Peyton Manning.

The Pats were able to get pressure on Manning by blitzing linebackers, Akeem Ayers and Jamie Collins, up the middle of the offensive line, especially on crucial downs. In fact, New England applied a great deal of that pressure during the 11 third down opportunities Denver had on the day. The Broncos' big time offensive attack was held to just three conversions on those attempts and left fruitless on four separate fourth down attempts.

New England also forced two Manning interceptions, which helped set their recently clicking offense up with great field position and scoring opportunities.

To back up their defense's strong effort, Tom Brady and the New England offense picked apart a Denver defense that is much better than the one they faced twice last season.

Brady exploited the Bronco secondary by teaming up with his two favorite targets, tight end Rob Gronkowski and wide receiver Julian Edelman, a combined 18 times. The two vastly different players each snagged nine catches for a combined 194 yards, which was more than half of Brady's 333 total passing yards on the day.

The quarterback also tossed four touchdowns against the revamped Denver defense, conecting with Gronkowski, Edelman, receiver Brandon Lafell and running back Shane Vereen.

New England also won the special teams battle, as kicker Stephen Gostkowski was perfect, producing points on all three of his field goal attempts. Edelman helped the cause, as well, when he returned a punt for and 84-yard touchdown, which helped him tie the all-time franchise record for most career punt return scores with four.

All in all, the Patriots took it to the Broncos every way imaginable in the rout and now stand in control in the AFC. They'll look to keep that control two weeks from now as they travel to Indianapolis to play the Colts in a Sunday night clash of championship contenders on NBC. New England should be ready to go as they have a bye this coming week and plenty of time to game plan.