It’s not very often an NFL coach returns to the interview room for a second postgame media availability. When he does, it’s not to share a joke he’d heard out in the hallway.

“Not good news,” came the somber words from Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton last Saturday night at Empower Field at Mile High, about an hour after his team had advanced to the AFC Championship Game via a thrilling 33-30 overtime victory against the Buffalo Bills.

“On the second to last play in overtime,” Payton continued, “Bo fractured a bone in his right ankle. He’s scheduled to have surgery.”

Bo, in this case, is Broncos quarterback Bo Nix. And Bo knows he’s out for the season, as do the rest of us. That’s the “not good news” Payton felt compelled to announce personally. It’ll thus be 29-year-old journeyman Jarrett Stidham quarterbacking the host Broncos against the New England Patriots in Sunday’s AFC title game.

And just like that, the Broncos have gone from favorites to underdogs. Stidham, who broke in with the Patriots in 2019, hasn’t started a game since 2023. His only game action during the 2025 season was mop-up duty in Denver’s 44-24 trampling of the Dallas Cowboys in October.

This means the Broncos have no chance against the Patriots, right? To the degree that “QUARTERBACK” is always the most important item in any big-board breakdown of any game, the Patriots have a big advantage in short-list MVP candidate Drake Maye. But there’s another eyebrow-raising item on the board: Historically, the Patriots have not fared well in postseason games played in Denver, losing four games in four tries, three of them with Tom Brady at quarterback. It’s easy to brush away all that history, arguing that these Patriots are not those Patriots, except Denver is different from other NFL cities. It’s not that people out there have an attitude, but that they have an altitude — as in 5,280 feet above sea level.

Considering the Broncos’ 20-9 record in home playoff games, including a 6-1 record in home AFC Championship Games, it would appear their players get accustomed to playing in the thin air. Talk all you want about the quarterback matchup — or mismatch, for the overconfident — but home-field advantage is size XXL any time we’re talking about a playoff game in Denver. It’s for that reason the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 30-27 victory in the divisional round over the Broncos at Mile High Stadium on Jan. 4, 1997, takes its place as one of the biggest playoff upsets in NFL history.

The ’96 Jags were a second-year expansion team with a 9-7 regular-season record. The ’96 Broncos were 13-3 and the top seed in the AFC. Jags quarterback Mark Brunell, who was 18-for-29 passing for 245 yards and two touchdowns, met with reporters after the history-making upset and perfectly summed up his team’s advancement to the AFC Championship Game: “If you had told me in July we’d have gone this far, I’d have laughed at you.”

If somebody had chased down Brunell last July and asked him about the chances of the ’25 Patriots playing in the AFC Championship Game, he’d have laughed at that as well. But here they are. To go further, though, as in Super Bowl LX, the Pats have to do what the ’96 Jags did. They have to win in Denver.

Let’s jump into the Wayback Machine for a look at New England’s four-game playoff history in Denver:

Broncos 22, Patriots 17, Divisional Round, Jan. 4, 1987, Mile High Stadium. The Patriots took a 17-13 lead in the third quarter on a perfectly executed flea flicker: Mosi Tatupu got the ball to quarterback Tony Eason, who threw a beauty to Stanley Morgan inside the 5 for what would be a 45-yard touchdown completion. However, the Broncos moved ahead to stay on their next possession, John Elway throwing a 48-yard touchdown pass to Vance Johnson.

The Patriots were coming off four straight games in which they had scored the winning points with under four minutes remaining. This time, on first-and-10 from their own 10 with 1:41 remaining, their hopes were dashed when the Broncos’ Rulon Jones ran through the Pats’ Ron Wooten and sacked Eason in the end zone for a safety. It was the first postseason game between the longtime rivals from the American Football League days.

Broncos 27, Patriots 13, Divisional Round, Jan. 14, 2006, Invesco Field at Mile High. The key play came late in the third quarter, with the Patriots on third-and-goal from the Denver 5, trailing 10-6. Brady threw to Troy Brown in the end zone, but Champ Bailey made the interception and returned it 100 yards to the New England 1. Props to the Patriots’ Ben Watson for racing down the field to stop Bailey and force a fumble out of bounds. Patriots coach Bill Belichick argued that Bailey actually fumbled the ball out of the end zone, which would have meant New England getting the ball back at its own 20, but the officials didn’t see it that way.

Broncos fullback Mike Anderson went in from the 1 on the next play, and Denver expanded its lead to 24-6 in the fourth quarter on a 4-yard TD toss from Jake Plummer to Rod Smith. Brady followed up with a 4-yard touchdown pass to David Givens, but he was intercepted on New England’s next, and last, drive. And so ended the Patriots’ quest to become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls. “The Patriots’ time is over with, brother,” said the Broncos’ Gerard Warren, whose own time as a defensive lineman would be over after playing for the Patriots in 2010 and ’11.

When Patriots Ben Watson chased down Champ Bailey 100 yards downfield in a playoff game. pic.twitter.com/fnqM1HLvFk

— Football’s Greatest Moments (@FBGreatMoments) December 14, 2025

Broncos 26, Patriots 16, AFC Championship Game, Jan. 19, 2014, Sports Authority Field at Mile High. It was another of those Tom Brady-Peyton Manning matchups, only this time with Manning, the longtime Indianapolis Colts quarterback, suiting up for the Broncos. Manning, who completed 32 of 43 passes for 400 yards and two touchdowns, got a lot of face time in this one: He dinked and dunked his way up and down the field, taking the Broncos on drives of 15 plays (7:01), 13 plays (7:08), 10 plays (4:07) and nine plays (5:23). In terms of time of possession, it was Denver 35:44, New England 24:16.

“To keep Tom Brady on the sidelines is a good thing,” Manning said. “That’s something you try to do when you play the Patriots.” Brady managed to be on the field long enough in the fourth quarter to throw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Julian Edelman and register a rushing touchdown of 5 yards. But an onside kick by Stephen Gostkowski was recovered by Denver with 3:06 remaining, and guess what: The Broncos moved the ball from their own 49 to the New England 12 to chew up the rest of the clock.

Broncos 20, Patriots 18, AFC Championship Game, Jan. 24, 2016, Sports Authority Field at Mile High. In this, the last Brady-Manning matchup, Manning gutted out a game in which he was 17-for-32 for 176 yards and two touchdowns while being sacked three times. Brady had a busier day (27-for-56 for 310 yards and one touchdown) but threw two interceptions and was sacked four times. The lone Brady TD pass was for 4 yards to Rob Gronkowski with 12 seconds remaining, but the would-be, game-tying 2-point conversion try, a pass intended for Edelman, was tipped by the Broncos’ Aqib Talib and intercepted by Bradley Roby.

Jan. 24, 2016 (2015 AFC Championship Game) — Behind their destructive defense, the Denver Broncos beat the New England Patriots, 20–18, to capture their 8th AFC crown.
DEN D: Hit @TomBrady 20× and had many huge stops@VonMiller: 1 INT and 2.5 sacks
PFM: 2 TDs in final home game pic.twitter.com/sqvRABh4K3

— Mile High Moments (@MileHighMoments) January 24, 2025

Manning, though 3-9 against Brady in regular-season games, improved to 3-2 against him in the postseason, including a 3-1 mark in the AFC Championship Game. The Broncos went on to defeat the Cam Newton-quarterbacked Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50, after which Manning, who was sacked five times, announced his retirement.