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We’re down to four teams on Conference Championship Sunday, with two games to decide who goes to Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara. As always, to better understand and decipher the storylines of the week, NFL Pro has a wealth of data and insights, carefully curated to highlight what matters most in each contest.
For the AFC and NFC Championships, we’ve broken this week’s insights into two separate pieces, one for each game! These are the four biggest insights to know for the AFC Championship between the Patriots and Broncos, with all the relevant NFL Pro context and the fallout we can expect Sunday — check out the NFC Championship piece for the goods on the Rams and Seahawks!
Drake Maye capitalizing when Denver doesn’t get pressure
As even the more casual fans are likely to know at this point, the Broncos pass rush is one of the best in the league (and in recent memory). Their 68 sacks weren’t just the most this year — 13 more than the Falcons in second place — they were tied for the fifth-most by any team in any single season. However, it’s often not what opposing quarterbacks do against Denver’s pressure that matters most … it’s how they take advantage of their relatively few dropbacks without pressure. During the regular season, just three quarterbacks posted a passer rating of 90+ and a success rate of 50% or higher from a clean pocket against the Broncos. Those three QBs — Daniel Jones, Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence — accounted for the only three wins Denver has surrendered the entire season. Conversely, six of the seven highest passer ratings and nine of the 10 highest success rates posted against this defense while under pressure resulted in losses.
So what can MVP candidate Drake Maye do from a clean pocket on Sunday? Well, his 118.5 passer rating without pressure was third-best among qualified quarterbacks, while his 9.0 yards per attempt, 77.0% completion rate and 0.45 EPA/dropback were second-most and his +8.3% completion percentage over expected led the entire NFL. None of this is particularly surprising given his MVP-level play all season, but it’s good news for New England’s chances at capitalizing on those clean dropbacks. Even against this elite pass defense, they have a three-star advantage on NFL Pro without pressure. Oh, and just as an added wrinkle, in the six games Maye was pressured most often in 2025, he went 6-0 with 273.8 passing yards per game, 13 touchdowns and a 113.6 passer rating. Not bad.
The Broncos defense swinging the score despite a depleted offense
There’s no sugar-coating it … the Broncos offense is not in great health heading into the AFC Championship. Wide receivers Pat Bryant and Marvin Mims Jr. both got banged up on Saturday, but the real dagger was when head coach Sean Payton announced after the game that Bo Nix had suffered a broken ankle at the very end of overtime. That means that backup QB (and former Patriot) Jarrett Stidham will be leading the offense on Sunday — a seventh-year QB who hasn’t attempted a pass the last two seasons and has a 1-3 career record as a starter with six TDs, four INTs and an 88.5 passer rating.
Fortunately for Broncos fans, with a defense led by Pro Bowlers Patrick Surtain II, Nik Bonitto and Zach Allen, they’re never out of any matchup. Denver had five games this season in which their offense posted a total expected points added (EPA) of -10.0 or lower … and they won all five games, with the defense recording an EPA of -12.1 or lower in all five. They scored 20 or fewer points in every one of those contests, but held those five opponents to an average of 9.6 points per game. And while Denver went 5-0 in those poor EPA games (most such wins in the league), the rest of the NFL was 23-124 (.156 win percentage) during the regular season … meaning, arguably no team is better suited to carry their offense with their defense. The difficulty will be pulling it off against the Patriots offense, which has just two games with -10.0 EPA or lower this year … and just won despite their season low of -21.1 against the Texans.
The impact of explosive plays in the duel between Josh McDaniels and Vance Joseph
The Broncos defense has allowed seven or more explosive plays eight times this year, including Saturday’s win over the Bills. All three of their losses on the season fall into that bucket, with the Jaguars logging nine explosive plays, the Colts eight and the Chargers seven back in Week 3. And included in the five victories were the one-point win over the Giants, the one-point win over the Commanders and the nail-biting overtime win over the Bills in the Divisional Round. The only such game they won by more than a single score was Week 18 … against the Chargers backups. In the six games they allowed 25+ points — including the postseason — Denver surrendered an explosive play rate of 14.2% … in the other 12 games, that rate drops to just 7.2% (nearly half).
Good news for New England (and bad news for Denver): the Patriots’ explosive play rate of 15.8% led the entire NFL in 2025. Specifically, their explosive pass play rate of 20.4% was eighth-highest by any team in any season in the Next Gen Stats era (since 2016). Only Matthew Stafford (72) logged more completions of 20+ yards than Drake Maye (67), and Patriots running backs combined for 14 rushes of 20+ yards, fourth-most in the league. Good news for Denver (and bad for New England): no team allowed a lower success rate on deep passes than the Broncos this season (20.3%) and only the Seahawks allowed a lower explosive run rate. The deep passing matchup in this game literally features NFL Pro’s number one offense and number one defense. Perhaps Patriots OC Josh McDaniels should look to yards after catch, as Vance Joseph’s defense just surrendered 171 YAC to the Bills, second-most by any team in a game this postseason and second-most by Denver in any game this year.
Concerns for RJ Harvey and Denver’s run game against the Patriots front
With unproven and, honestly, unreliable Jarrett Stidham under center, it would stand to reason that Denver would turn to the run game to find points against the Patriots (and keep Drake Maye off the field). Unfortunately, their run game has been rather stale lately (while the Patriots run defense has been as fresh as Cape Cod seafood). After averaging 137.8 rushing yards per game over the first eight weeks of the season (tied for third in the NFL), the Broncos have slipped to 98.6 rush YPG since Week 9, including the postseason (sixth-fewest). That second span includes five of their six outings with fewer than 100 team rushing yards — particularly the dismal showing against Buffalo last weekend, in which Bo Nix was the leading rusher (with 29 yards), while RJ Harvey and Jaleel McLaughlin combined for just 41 yards on 10 carries. Over those first two months, the Broncos led the NFL with 235 rush yards over expected — but their -136 rush yards over expected since is dead last. That’s quite a discouraging shift.
And as for that Patriots defense? So far this postseason, they’ve held opposing running backs to 61 rushing yards on 30 carries. No, that’s not a misprint. They’ve allowed 2.03 yards per carry, -41 rush yards over expected and zero rushing touchdowns to the position (all best in this playoffs). Only one defense has ever allowed zero rushing TDs and fewer yards per carry to RBs across multiple games in a single postseason: the 1986 Super Bowl champion Giants (with Bill Belichick as defensive coordinator). New England currently ranks fourth in NFL Pro’s overall defensive rushing efficiency and holds a two-star advantage over the Broncos (who rank 19th on offense). Harvey, McLaughlin and the Broncos run game has a tall task ahead of them, and they’re not trending the right way to conquer it.