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| Fresh off career-best seasons, Peyton Manning and Knowshon Moreno will lead Denver against the New England Patriots in the AFC title game. |
Cory Puffett
For two weeks, even as eleven other teams played out the
first seven games of the 2014 postseason, the spotlight was on the Denver
Broncos. They were bombarded with questions about topics ranging from Peyton
Manning’s 9-11 career playoff record to Denver’s divisional playoff to the
Ravens just a season ago. Stories ran covering everything Peyton Manning’s
abysmal career weather in outdoor, cold-weather games to Denver’s
regular-season home loss to San Diego just a month ago.
The Broncos didn’t necessarily rise to the occasion in the
way their fans would have liked, but they got out to a fast start did just
enough to hold off a fourth quarter surge by the Chargers.
Denver followed the trend of the postseason, albeit not to
the tee. All eight winning teams have gained at least 100 rushing yards. But
Peyton Manning was the only winning quarterback in the divisional round to
throw for at least 200 yards.
Denver’s secondary struggled throughout the game, but a
great pass rush during the first half covered up their shortcomings and allowed
Denver to take a comfortable 14-0 lead into the intermission.
San Diego’s was able to take advantage of a couple drops,
some poor play calls, a pair of errant throws by Manning and an onside kick
recovery to make a huge fourth quarter comeback. All 17 of the Chargers’ points
came in the final quarter.
But Denver managed one deep drive capped off by a touchdown
run by Knowshon Moreno that ultimately made the difference.
Now Denver will host the New England Patriots in next
Sunday’s AFC title game. The Patriots scored 43 points on arguably a better
defense than what the Denver Broncos have, but I’ll talk more about that in my
preview on Thursday.
This will be the 15th meeting between Peyton Manning
and Tom Brady and the fourth in the postseason. Brady leads the playoff series
2-1, but the home team has won every time so far.
Final Score:
San Diego Chargers – 17
Denver Broncos – 24
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