Located at 5,280 feet above sea level, Empower Field at Mile High offers a unique home field advantage for the Denver Broncos.<\/p>\n
Whereas their players are in a familiar environment, visiting teams will have to get ready not just for the Broncos themselves as well as a hostile fanbase but also the effects of the altitude can have. On Sunday, those tasks fall on the New England Patriots, who will travel to Denver for the AFC Championship Game.<\/p>\n
So, how do the Patriots plan to prepare? By following the simplest possible plan: business as usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther than going out there last Thursday, which wouldn\u2019t have been an ideal situation considering we had to play last night, but I think just physiologically you have to be at altitude for longer than a day or two or three,\u201d said head coach Mike Vrabel. \u201cIt takes time to do that. So, we\u2019ll do what we\u2019ve always done. We\u2019ll travel, be in condition and be ready to play. That\u2019s kind of about what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past, the Patriots have opted for varying strategies to adapt to playing in Denver. Ultimately, none of them proved significantly more effective than others. This makes sense given Vrabel\u2019s explanation that it takes over a week to fully acclimate to the change in altitude.<\/p>\n
As a consequence, the Patriots will spend the week in Foxborough and practice at their Gillette Stadium facility at 298 feet above sea level. That is the established and straight-forward method of preparation, and for Vrabel the more attractive one.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo tricks,\u201d he said. \u201cJust play well, try to be prepared and the better condition that you are, the less of an impact that that\u2019s going to make. There\u2019s no tricks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Safety Craig Woodson echoed his head coach\u2019s remarks about not switching anything up.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur record says it. We\u2019re 8-0 on the road. So, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything that we really need to change up,\u201d the rookie defender explained. \u201cWe\u2019ve had success on the road. We\u2019re going to continue to have success. So, I don\u2019t think we need to change up anything. We just prepare like we usually do and we\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Located at 5,280 feet above sea level, Empower Field at Mile High offers a unique home field advantage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[232,231,258,2426,7,52113,91604,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-691537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-broncos","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-broncos","11":"tag-denverbroncos","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-new-england-patriots-first-read","14":"tag-new-england-patriots-playoffs","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115928350811045968","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}