Brady vs. Manning XVI

The game we all circled on our calendars is finally here. It’s the week when the two best teams in the AFC and the two best quarterbacks of a generation square off in a battle for who ultimately claims the top seed in the AFC. It’s the New England Patriots vs. the Denver Broncos. It’s Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning. Here we go:

The Broncos have indisputably been the best team in the league this year. They’ve improved their record setting offense by upgrading from Eric Decker to Emmanuel Sanders, and their defense got a whole lot tougher with the additions of DeMarcus Ware, T.J. Ward and Aqib Talib. They lost their lone game on the road in Seattle against the defending champion Seahawks, but have otherwise been dominant. They’ve dismantled good teams like the Colts, Cardinals, 49ers and Chargers, scoring over 31 points in all of those games. The only knock against them is that all four of those wins have come at home, and they’re just 1-1 on the road.

The Patriots, on the other hand, have been a bit of an enigma this season. They have brutal road losses to the Dolphins and Chiefs and dominant home performances against the Bengals and Bears. They also looked sloppy in tight wins against the dismal Raiders and Jets. At their best, the Patriots have looked good enough to beat anybody, but at their worst they’ve looked like a team that could lose every game. They’re going to need to bring the offense that hung 51 points on the Bears and the defense that bottled up AJ Green and Gio Bernard if they’re going to have a chance against Broncos on Sunday.

On offense the Broncos will move the ball, there’s just no denying that. The Patriots’ job is going to be keeping the ball in front of them and holding strong in the red zone, forcing Denver to settle for field goals. It’s unlikely that we’ll see Darelle Revis and Brandon Browner shadow certain guys around the field given the number of elite weapons on the Broncos’ offense. Instead they’ll likely take a page from the Seahawks’ playbook and play a lot of Cover 3 defense, dropping three defenders deep to prevent long plays, and bait Manning into checking into running plays at the line of scrimmage. If the Patriots can get Manning to continually hand the ball off the way they did in November of last year, they’ll have a better chance of winning.

On the other side of the ball, the Patriots’ game will rely on protecting Brady. The Broncos have two of the best edge rushers in the game in Von Miller and Ware, and it will be imperative for Nate Solder and Sebastian Vollmer to slow those guys down. If Brady is protected, he can pick apart any secondary in the league, even with Talib and Ward back there. It will also be important for the Patriots to establish a running game to control the clock and keep Manning off the field. Jonas Gray looked great against the Bears and his style of power running could be the key to beating the Broncos. The Pats will also have a matchup advantage with Shane Vereen in the passing game because the Broncos’ linebackers are not great in pass coverage.

My Prediction: This is a tough game to pick. The Broncos are clearly a better all around football team, especially considering how healthy their team has stayed. That being said, the Patriots are dominant at home and this will be just the third time since 2005 that they’ve been underdogs at home. They won the previous two (against Denver last season and Cincinnati this season) and always seem to get up for games like this. When you throw in the weather forecast of low temperatures, high wind and possible snow, it’s hard to pick against the Patriots. For all of those reasons I like the Pats in this one, 27-24. As Scott Zolak said on last week’s broadcast, “you have your Manning, I’ll take my Brady. It’s on!”

Starting Slow

The Boston Bruins’ season is underway, and it has not started the way they wanted it to. They’ve played seven games and sit at 3-4 in fifth place in the Atlantic Division. As reigning President’s Trophy winners and heavy favorites to win the division again this year, a 3-4 start is not what anyone expected. Of course, this is not the same team that cruised to a 117-point season last year, as they are down two key players in Jarome Iginla and Johnny Boychuk. Iginla, a 30-goal scorer last year, left in free agency to join the Colorado Avalanche, who had a lot more money to offer him than the “capped out” Bruins. The Bruins then traded Boychuk to the New York Islanders for two second round draft picks and a conditional third rounder. The move was made essentially to free up cap space for Riley Smith and Torey Krug’s one-year contracts.

Because of the complete lack of cap space, the Bruins had one of the most boring offseasons in the history of the NHL. In fact, the Bruins signed exactly zero free agents. Instead, they turned within to find replacements for Iginla, Boychuk, and Shawn Thornton, who also walked in free agency. It’s still not entirely clear who has won those spots, though the Bruins did sign Simon Gagne a few days into the season and he’s been on the roster ever since. Matt Fraser and Seth Griffith are two young guys that also seem to have found their place with the Bruins, though both have been healthy scratches at times and neither has made much of an impact yet.

The slow start can be attributed to a few things. One is the lack of identity. The only line that has been the same for all seven games has been Bergeron centering Riley Smith and Brad Marchand. Other than that, it has been a lot of mixing and matching. The result is a mere 15 goals through seven games, and, of course, a record under .500. Only 11 of those goals have come from forwards, just 1.57 goals per game. If this team is going to win more hockey games, they need more than a goal and a half per game from their 12 forwards. The best way the Bruins can improve their offense is to stabilize the lines and let them gel. Aside from the Bergeron line, the Chris Kelly-Carl Soderberg-Loui Eriksson line has also been relatively unchanged and has actually been the Bruins’ most productive trio this season (five goals).

The biggest question the Bruins face offensively is who will play along side David Krejci opposite Milan Lucic. So far it has been a two-man rotation between Gagne and Griffith. Of the two, Gagne has looked a lot better on that line, scoring a goal and creating multiple chances. Griffith is an undersized, speedy youngster who scored at a breathtaking pace in the OHL (166 points in 122 games from 2011-2013 with the London Knights) and added 50 points (20 goals, 30 assists) in his first AHL season last year with the Providence Bruins. In his three NHL games this season he has looked timid in the corners, sloppy with the puck and otherwise overwhelmed. Of course, that’s perfectly acceptable for a relatively small 21-year old playing in his first NHL games, but the Bruins might not have the luxury of letting him adjust given how much they’re struggling offensively. He’s someone I’d send back to Providence for another season if he doesn’t show some promise in his next five or so games.

Defensively the Bruins have been decent. They certainly don’t look like the lock down defense that won a Stanley Cup in 2011 and a President’s Trophy last year, but they’ve been serviceable. They’re still clearly looking for someone to step up and be the all-around defenseman that Johnny Boychuk was. Boychuk was a rare combination of a defenseman that could punish the opponent in the defensive zone, sell out to block shots on the penalty kill and generate offense going the other direction. So far Adam McQuaid has been filling the penalty killing time and Dougie Hamilton has been providing the offense alongside Zdeno Chara as well as on the powerplay. Neither player looks like Boychuk just yet. Dennis Seidenberg is also still shaking off the rust from his ACL surgery, and will presumably return to his elite form as the season wears on.

In net, it’s the same old Bruins. Tuukka Rask is still one of, if not the best goaltenders in the league, and early indications are that Niklas Svedberg is an upgrade from Chad Johnson as the team’s backup goalie to give Rask a breather every now and then. Svedberg lost his first start of the season to the Colorado Avalanche 2-1 on a last second (literally) goal. He then followed it up with his first career NHL shutout (32 saves) in Buffalo on Saturday night.

Going forward I expect the Bruins to improve. It’s certainly not time to panic yet. This team was discombobulated from the start with open competitions for roster spots and injuries to Krejci and Gregory Campbell. As the lines begin to stabilize the offensive production will come. Guys like Lucic and Brad Marchand are notoriously slow starters, and while invisible through seven games, those two guys will begin to find the back of the net. They’ve also played more games than any other team in the NHL so far. The crammed schedule to open the season leaves very little time to improve in practice and build chemistry amongst the lines. As the schedule gets lighter, the Bruins’ quality of play should get stronger.

All of that being said, however, this isn’t a President’s Trophy team right now. They lost a 61-point player in Iginla and a top-notch NHL defenseman in Boychuk and are trying to replace them with guys with very little experience. There’s bound to be a regression when that happens. I still think they have the pieces to win the division, though it will be a much tighter contest this year with the Montreal Canadiens, Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators looking much improved from last season. But if the Bruins want to contend for another Stanley Cup this year, they will need to add a top-6 winger and probably a top-4 defenseman at the trade deadline, barring any unforeseen breakout seasons from younger players.