The Denver Broncos are a defiant bunch. They play and talk with a chip on their collective shoulders, and now they’ve got the ultimate reason to be defiant.
They’re already listed as big underdogs for their second straight home playoff game, which makes all the sense in the world given that the Broncos will be playing their backup quarterback, Jarrett Stidham, against his former team, the New England Patriots.
Let the mind games begin. The early line for Sunday’s AFC championship game has New England favored by 5.5 points, so the Broncos will get to play the underdog card again. The Broncos are one of the best teams in the league when it comes to doing disrespected, and they'll get another chance to do it all week.
This time the line won’t swing back in Denver’s favor. Last week they ended up as slim favorites, but with Jarrett Stidham starting, they’ll stay underdogs for sure, perhaps even by a bigger margin. No one expects this to be a close game, and most experts have the best case for the Broncos being able to hang around for a half.
Meanwhile, the Patriots have a different challenge on their hands. They have to focus on the opponent, not the quarterback, and that’s not going to be easy with all the noise about how easy this game is going to be for New England.
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel isn’t buying any of this. He’s talking about playing the number one seed, and he’s been there, done that as a player. He hasn’t mentioned the Broncos quarterback yet, and he’s clearly trying to avoid doing that for as long as possible.
“Mostly, enjoy the execution” Vrabel said in a piece written by Steve Buckley of The Athletic when he talked about what it was going to be like playing at Mile High on Sunday. “We’ll keep doing that, and we know we’ve got to go on the road to a No. 1 seed in the AFC, and it’s not going to be easy. But we’ll come out and be ready to go.”
Vrabel also knows his team needs to be better prepared than they were against the Houston Texans. The Patriots played a sloppy game against Houston, and a big part of the reason they won was the home crowd, which rattled Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud so badly that he was barely functional by the end of the game.
If they play that way against Denver, the underdog Broncos will have a chance, and that’s all they really want in this game.