October 18, 2020 | 7:18 PM
Entering Sunday’s matchup with the Denver Broncos, the Patriots were 39-0 – including the postseason – under head coach Bill Belichick when not allowing a touchdown.
Now they’re 39-1.
The Broncos came close, but they never quite reached the end zone. Even so, they still managed to escape with an 18-12 win in Foxborough. Brandon McManus pieced together one of the best fantasy performances for a kicker of all-time, drilling 45, 44, 27, 52, 20, and 54-yard field goals and accounting for all of Denver’s points.
“This was definitely a special one,” McManus told reporters.
#BroncosCountry LIVE: @thekidmcmanus meets the media after we #BeatThePatriots. https://t.co/L7mcXNpDSz
— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) October 18, 2020
Broncos head coach Vic Fangio – who gave a game ball to his kicker – said he considered putting McManus back out there for close to a 57-yarder near the end of the game, but he doesn’t regret his decision and was pleased with the outcome.
Fangio said settling for field goals “can come back to bite you,” but in this case, it proved to be enough.
From the Patriots’ perspective, the production on the defensive side of the ball was a mixed bag. On the one hand, they kept the Broncos out of the end zone. On the other, Denver scored six times and had the ball for 32 minutes, 30 seconds, compared to 27:30 for New England.
Defensive back Devin McCourty said it comes down to consistency for the defense. Sometimes during the game, the Patriots look like they’re “blazing,” and other times they don’t, McCourty said.
“When you watch the games, it’s not like we’re terrible at a bunch of stuff, we just have to make plays,” McCourty told reporters. “You look at it, we did good in the red area. We did some things well on defense, but we gave up a couple of deep balls. A couple of runs broke out, you know, it’s just the little things and I think that’s what we have to continue to work on. It’s not like we have these huge holes on our team.”
Bill Belichick Live Postgame Press Conference https://t.co/hz2pVVmNvf
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) October 18, 2020
Belichick said the Patriots let the Broncos get into the red area too many times, gave up too many long plays, and let them get into field-goal range too often.
“It’s always good to keep them out of the end zone, that’s definitely the goal,” Belichick said, “but they scored more points than we did, so we need to play better defense and give up fewer and try to score more.”
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