Patriots punch ticket to 12th Super Bowl with gritty 10-7 win over Broncos in snowy Denver

DENVER (AP) Drake Maye handled the sloppy, snowy conditions better than the home team and he scored New England’s only touchdown on a 6-yard keeper, propelling the New England Patriots to their 12th Super Bowl with a 10-7 win over the Denver Broncos in the AFC championship game Sunday.

Maye threw for just 86 yards, but ran for 65 and iced the win with a 7-yard keeper on third-and-5 in the waning minutes to send the Patriots (17-3) to the Super Bowl in Mike Vrabel's first year as coach.

The Patriots will play the Seattle Seahawks, who beat the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC championship game, on Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, California.

“I’m just proud of this team,” said the 23-year-old Maye, who's the second-youngest starting quarterback to reach the Super Bowl, behind only Miami's Dan Marino. “Don’t have many words. Just thankful for this team. Love each and every one of them. It took everybody.”

Christian Gonzalez intercepted Jarrett Stidham, starting in place of an injured Bo Nix, with 2:11 remaining for New England’s second takeaway. The first set up the Patriots with a short field and led to Maye’s touchdown scamper that tied it at 7 heading into halftime.

With Nix looking on from a suite following ankle surgery Tuesday in Alabama, Stidham made his first start in more than two years. His first completion since the 2023 regular-season finale was a 52-yard dart to Marvin Mims Jr. to the New England 7 that set up Courtland Sutton’s 6-yard touchdown catch.

That was Stidham’s highlight as he turned the ball over twice and finished 17 of 31 for 133 yards with the TD.

“I was super excited for the opportunity and just hate that we fell short,” Stidham said.

New England, which went 4-13 last year under Jerod Mayo, became the third team in the Super Bowl era to win a conference championship with 10 points or less. Buffalo beat Denver 10-7 in the 1991 AFC title game, and Los Angeles beat Tampa Bay 9-0 in the 1979 NFC championship game.

Vrabel, who won three Super Bowls as a playmaking linebacker for the Patriots, could become the first person in NFL history to also win as a head coach for the same franchise.

“I won’t win it. It’ll be the players that’ll win the game,” Vrabel said. “I promise you, it won’t be me that’ll win it, and I promise you that I’ll do everything I can, and our staff, to have them ready for the game.”

The Broncos (15-4) finished one step shy of fulfilling Sean Payton’s preseason prediction of a trip to Super Bowl 60, and he pointed the finger right at himself.

He said he regretted his call on fourth-and-1 from the New England 14 in the second quarter when a chip-shot field goal before the snow came in would have given Denver a double-digit lead. Stidham’s throw to running back R.J. Harvey was incomplete and the Broncos' early momentum vanished.

“There’s always regrets,” Payton said. “Yeah, I mean, look, I felt like here we are, fourth-and-1. We felt close enough ... So, yeah, there’ll always be second thoughts.”

The Broncos were left clinging to a 7-0 lead that was short-lived. Elijah Ponder recovered Stidham’s backward pass at the Denver 12, setting up the tying touchdown two plays later.

“I thought I threw it forward and obviously the replay said differently,” Stidham said. “Probably should have just eaten the sack and let (Jeremy) Crawshaw punt the ball and flip the field.”

Both kickers missed two field goals in the frigid conditions with Denver’s Wil Lutz and New England’s Andy Borregales wide on long tries just before the snow came in at halftime. Lutz's 45-yard attempt late in the fourth quarter was tipped by Leonard Taylor III.

The Patriots’ victory was their 40th in the playoffs, breaking a tie with the San Francisco 49ers for the most in NFL history.

It was sunny at kickoff with a temperature of 26 degrees, but by halftime the snowflakes began falling and grounds crews had to use snowblowers to mark the hashmarks and yard lines by the fourth quarter, when it was 16 degrees.

“It was a lot of fun out there,” Broncos cornerback Pat Surtain II said. “Snow game, for the conference, to go to the Super Bowl - it doesn’t get any better than that. I felt like I was a little kid out there just playing in the snow.”

And the Patriots had the most fun of all.

“What an atmosphere out here,” said Maye, in his second NFL season. “Battle of the elements. Love this team. How about the defense? I love each and every one of them.”

The Patriots have allowed 26 points across three playoff games. The only team to allow fewer points over three playoff games before a Super Bowl appearance was the 2000 Ravens, who allowed just 16 points.

After gaining just 72 yards in the first half, the Patriots opened the second half in swirling snow with a 16-play, 64-yard drive that ate up 9 1/2 minutes and ended with a 23-yard field goal by Borregales that proved the difference.

Stidham, who was drafted by the Patriots in 2019, made his first start since the 2023 regular-season finale. The Broncos were the only team in the league that didn’t give their backup QB any snaps or handoffs the last two seasons.

The Patriots have averaged 18 points per game in the playoffs, the fewest by any team to make the Super Bowl since the 1979 Rams, who averaged 15.

“I'll take an ugly win before I take a pretty loss,” Diggs said. "Nobody's satisfied. Happy, but not complacent. We’re blessed to be where we are, but we know there’s more out there for us.”

Coming up just short of a trip to the Super Bowl will drive Denver, said Surtain, who suggested: “This is not the last time we’re going to be here. We’re going to just keep on building and getting better.”

Nix, who had 11 game-winning drives in his first two NFL seasons, got hurt on Denver’s final drive in overtime against Buffalo last week, and this title game will always be dogged in Denver by the what-ifs.

“It (stinks),” linebacker Alex Singleton said. “We’ll remember it for the rest of our lives.”

Patriots: LB Robert Spillane (ankle) left in the first quarter.

Broncos: WR Pat Bryant left with a hamstring injury in the second quarter.

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This story has been corrected to show Maye ran for 65 yards and not 68.

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