In most of the past meetings between the Patriots and Peyton Manning-led offenses, the key for New England’s defense has been to force players other than Manning to beat them.
That’s not the approach the Patriots appear to be bringing into the AFC championship game. While coach Bill Belichick said this week that he would never underestimate Manning’s ability, safety Devin McCourty thinks the key for the Patriots will be to shut down the Denver running game that put up 179 yards in their regular season victory over the Patriots.
“It’s kind of a direct correlation for us that we’ve got to make sure we go out there, play well in the run game and I think that will set up the rest of our defense,” McCourty said, via the Boston Herald. “I think we’ve got to try and get them behind and try to play good defense on first down and not let them just pound us and be able to pound the ball.”
In that first meeting, the Patriots were without linebacker Jamie Collins and Dont’a Hightower left in the first half with a knee injury. The Broncos run game took off once Hightower was out of the lineup, so executing the plan of shutting down the Broncos on the ground will have a better plan of succeeding if both are in the lineup. Both were among the 15 limited participants in Wednesday’s Patriots practice and Jerod Mayo has been placed on injured reserve to leave the team with less than ideal depth at inside linebacker.