Quote:
Originally Posted by stevegroganfan
I give Patriots roughly a 50% chance to win this game which is obviously more of a chance than Vegas gives them.
Patriots post season record outside of Foxborough with Brady as QB is....
8-7.... Granted 8 of those games on "neutral fields" the Super Bowl but Tom Brady obviously knows hot to win away from Foxborough.
But his home playoff losses(Baltimore/Jets) also show he is hardly invincible at home... All 3 of those home losses were not flukes. Baltimore and the Jets earned their wins and were the better team those games.
Heck in the 3 Super Bowl losses, in 2 games he helped them get the lead late and in the other game, he tossed for 500+ yards.
This gives me confidence Brady won't be a problem at all on Sunday unless he gets hurt.
All things considered(opponent and health/talent of Patriots), I really have only been disappointed in Brady in one playoff road loss. The most recent loss to the Broncos where Patriots lost 20-18 is the game. Sure Denver had a really good defense but Brady and Patriots missed on plays they normally hit. Patriots knew going into that game, Manning was shot. Manning for a QB with a shot arm played really well in big moments with his limitations and the defense he was facing.
Brady did not for too much of that game considering he is and was still a great QB at that point of his career. That loss is really the one road loss I kind of pin on Tom Brady and not the team/other factors.
Close loss in Indy(38-34) to a great Colts team led by Manning built for a dome.
First playoff loss eons ago to Denver. Really I thought refs were for Denver in a significant way -- maybe because the Patriots had won 3 damn Super Bowls recently and NFL sick of Patriots by then -- that game and one play doomed Patriots comeback chances. The near pick 6 by Champ Bailey when Patriots was throwing into Denver end zone that Ben Watson saved with a monster effort but Denver still scored TD from 1 yard out which pretty much won them the game.
No doubt that HFA is real but fans can overstate it. Players can benefit from crowd by helping draw off sides penalties and probably refs on a few marginal calls.
KC deserves to be called best team in the AFC throughout this regular season. I think Patriots fans who argue that KC on average wasn't a little better than the Patriots on average this regular season are out to lunch.
But while KC hasn't been decimated by injuries and is relatively healthy from what I can understand, the loss of Hunt is greater than the loss of Josh Gordon. And I like Gordon and feel he is a real loss to the Patriots in a game like this.
And I may be wrong but I think BB has done a little better job than Andy Reid in building a team for playoff football in bad weather. For example, I believe part of the reason Patriots have a traditional fullback on the roster and other teams don't is bad weather/power football when it is needed.
Add up, all of those factors and I think of this game as pretty darn close to a coin flip.
If the weather is truly a non factor like it would be at perhaps 35 to 85 degrees, I'd probably give KC a 60% shot at winning it given they are at home and have an explosive offense that is hard to contain.
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The weather is going to be much better now. If it ends up being 25 or so and dry, the weather conditions on Sunday will be WAY better than they were on Saturday, when they torched the Colts six ways to Sunday.