It\u2019s been a long six years, but the wait is finally over: the New England Patriots are going back to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n
In a defensively-dominated AFC Championship Game, the team of head coach Mike Vrabel was able to overcome the Denver Broncos and some bad weather to secure a 10-7 victory. Overall, it marks the 12th conference title for the franchise.<\/p>\n
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The Patriots struggled mightily to move the ball in the first half, with their lone points before intermission coming off a short field following a fumble recovery. The unit showed some improvement in the second half, but points were still hard to come by. Luckily, their defense came to play yet again and with the exception of one touchdown in the first quarter dominated the Broncos throughout the afternoon.<\/p>\n
As a consequence, they are now on to Super Bowl LX \u2014 a remarkable achievement for a team that went 4-13 in back-to-back seasons before this one and is on its third head coach in as many years.<\/p>\n
Updated 2026 NFL playoffs bracket<\/p>\n
The NFL playoffs started with seven teams on each side of the bracket, including the second-seeded Patriots. After beating the Los Angeles Chargers on wild card weekend and Houston Texans in the divisional round, they qualified for the AFC title game for the first time since January 2019.<\/p>\n
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Wild card results<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Rams (5)\u00a0at Carolina Panthers (4) |\u00a0LA 34, CAR 31<\/p>\n
Green Bay Packers (7) at\u00a0Chicago Bears (2)\u00a0|\u00a0GB 27, CHI 31<\/p>\n
Buffalo Bills (6)\u00a0at Jacksonville Jaguars (3) |\u00a0BUF 27, JAX 24<\/p>\n
San Francisco 49ers (6)\u00a0at Philadelphia Eagles (3) |\u00a0SF 23, PHI 19<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Chargers (7) at\u00a0New England Patriots (2)\u00a0|\u00a0LAC 3, NE 16<\/p>\n
Houston Texans (5)\u00a0at Pittsburgh Steelers (4) |\u00a0HOU 30, PIT 6<\/p>\n
Divisional round results<\/p>\n
Buffalo Bills (6) at\u00a0Denver Broncos (1)\u00a0|\u00a0BUF 30, DEN 33 (OT)<\/p>\n
San Francisco 49ers (6) at\u00a0Seattle Seahawks (1)\u00a0|\u00a0SF 6, SEA 41<\/p>\n
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Houston Texans (5) at\u00a0New England Patriots (2)\u00a0|\u00a0HOU 16, NE 28<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Rams (5)\u00a0at Chicago Bears (2) |\u00a0LA 20, CHI 17 (OT)<\/p>\n
AFC, NFC Championship results<\/p>\n
New England Patriots (2) at Denver Broncos (1) | NE 10, DEN 7<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Rams (5) at Seattle Seahawks (1) | Jan. 25, 8 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
New England Patriots Super Bowl opponent, details<\/p>\n
Super Bowl LX will take place on Sunday, Feb. 8 at 3:40 p.m. ET at Levi\u2019s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. The Patriots will take on the winner of the NFC Championship Game between the Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a long six years, but the wait is finally over: the New England Patriots are going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[423,53,260,391,258,7,345,221,253,2368,125,262,58,249,6,109,57,252,261,505,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-705140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-afc-championship-game","9":"tag-buffalo-bills","10":"tag-carolina-panthers","11":"tag-chicago-bears","12":"tag-denver-broncos","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-green-bay-packers","15":"tag-houston","16":"tag-houston-texans","17":"tag-houstontexans","18":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","19":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","20":"tag-los-angeles-rams","21":"tag-new-england-patriots","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","24":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","25":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","26":"tag-seattle-seahawks","27":"tag-super-bowl","28":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115958624110092213","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705140","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=705140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}