Andrew Callahan: Patriots' return to the Super Bowl a complete team triumph

Andrew Callahan, Boston Herald on Jan 25, 2026

Published in Football

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DENVER — At the beginning, all Mike Vrabel wanted was to take advantage of bad football.

To galvanize the New England Patriots.

To give a proud fanbase hope once again after years of defeat and disappointment.

Then, as Vrabel worked from his opening press conference, taking the Patriots by the hand through the early stages of a rebuild and the first few weeks of the regular season, a funny thing happened on the road back to respectability.

The Patriots started running.

In late October, they began leaving breadcrumbs of belief in a potential Super Bowl run. They won 10 games in a row. A December loss to Buffalo left them vowing to one another to never, ever feel the pain of letting a large lead slip again, even when Drake Maye struggles, as he did that day.

But fulfilling that promise would require something more than elite quarterback play from Maye and clever coaching out of Vrabel. It would take all of them, from the starting quarterback down to the practice-squad defensive tackle elevated to the active roster hours before the biggest game of his life.

Lucky for the Patriots, that’s exactly what they got.

The Patriots will play in Super Bowl LX, thanks to a 10-7 triumph over the Broncos in an AFC Championship that evolved into a wintry battle of wills. Ghosts of past conference title games in Denver surfaced early, when the Broncos staked an early lead behind backup quarterback and ex-Pats draft pick Jarrett Stidham. But those ghosts disappeared as the snow arrived, an omen of big Patriots playoffs wins if there ever was one.

And boy, did they deliver again.

Maye knocked out the Broncos by scampering all alone to his left on a third-down naked bootleg, Josh McDaniels’ best play-call on a day of bad weather and good defense. One series earlier, star corner Christian Gonzalez snatched his first interception of the season in front of the Patriots’ sideline on a desperate heave that all but sealed Denver’s fate. And on the Broncos’ possession before that, little-known defensive tackle Leonard Taylor III got a piece of Will Lutz’s 45-yard, potential game-tying field goal attempt to kill their best chance at a comeback bid.

Offense, defense and special teams coalescing in a display of championship football on a championship stage.

After a cakewalk regular season, it had to be this hard. And it was.

For a time, the Patriots seemed destined for disappointment. A 7-7 halftime tie felt like a best-case scenario for a team that had gained its fewest yards in a playoff half in almost 30 years. If the Patriots were bound to lose Sunday, the script would have started exactly like that.

Eleven years ago, Tom Brady was buried on the same field under a barrage of sacks, hits and hurries in an upset that sprung the Broncos to the Super Bowl. Maye played like Brady did then: skittish and inaccurate in the first half. A shell of the MVP candidate we saw and celebrated for most of the season.

Maye took five total sacks Sunday, and his body will wake up Monday feeling the same as Brady’s did all those years ago: bruised and battered. But his mind, his spirit, will have the ultimate pain-killer: winning.

The Patriots broke away from the Broncos by breaking their dependency on Maye to start the second half. They pounded out their frustrations over a 16-play field goal drive that featured 10 runs and three pass attempts. Maye did cover 28 yards on a third-down scramble, but the Pats won that drive and the game in the same place they initially let it slip: the line of scrimmage.

Rhamondre Stevenson barreled ahead again and again. He rushed 25 times for 71 yards. The Pats finished with 143 total, almost double Maye’s 86 passing yards, and zero turnovers.

Defensively, they held the Broncos to 212 yards, one touchdown and pulled out one turnover. Thanks to Andy Borregales’ 23-yard field goal at the end of that go-ahead drive, it didn’t matter he missed two other kicks. His team picked him up, the same as it did for Maye, and held on over a tight finish.

These Patriots are obviously not the dominant Patriots of old again. But they were never meant to be.

This was, from the beginning, a new era. A new season. A new day.

A new day that will end with a familiar sunset on Super Bowl Sunday.

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