Patriots vs. Broncos
All right, let’s move on and talk about the AFC Championship Game.
Before we do that, do any of you remember Karate Kid 3? Great movie from the 80’s. Some phenomenal characters in there:
Some really interesting story-lines as well. One of those story-lines was that the main character, Daniel LaRusso, wax on, wax off, he was competing in this karate tournament, the All Valley Karate Tournament. And for reasons that no one can logically explain away, in Karate Kid 3, he didn’t have to compete in the entire tournament! He just got a free pass to the finals:
Truly unprecedented.
The reason I bring that up is because, does that sound familiar to any of you? Is there an AFC football team that kind of got a free pass to the finals? A free pass to the Super Bowl?
What? Don’t look at me like that, Patriots fans! I know you’re looking at me like that. We can make jokes. We can have a good time with this.
Okay, I’m sorry. I take back everything I just said. The Patriots had one of the rougher roads to the Super Bowl that you will ever see. Really difficult regular season schedule.
Had to get through all the champions of the past during the postseason.
The NFL Gods just put one obstacle in their way after another, after another, after another, and they just overcame.
Really inspirational team. There were like 100 different moments in the regular season in the playoffs where you just said, this team, it’s done. All the odds are stacked against them. They’re not going to be able to do it.
There. Is that better?
All right. Now that that’s out of the way, we can really talk about the AFC Championship Game. And this was a game that the Patriots won because of, well, you can probably guess if you’ve listened to this podcast before, situational football.
I know. You’re tired of hearing it. I’m tired of talking about it, but it’s the same thing every week. It’s the same thing every year. The playoffs are about playing to situations, managing the game.