Pressure Broke Teams This Weekend: Conference Championship Fallout

Broncos heartbreak, a Lumen Field classic, and a Super Bowl rematch nobody saw coming this way.

Conference Championship weekend is supposed to separate contenders from cute little stories.

This year? It exposed people.

We got a rock fight in Denver, a track meet in Seattle, and we walk out of it with a Super Bowl 60 matchup straight out of a fever dream: Patriots vs Seahawks, the Malcolm Butler rematch.

Let’s talk about how we got there.

Mile High Gut Punch: Patriots 10, Broncos 7

If you’ve watched or listened to this show for more than 10 seconds, you know where we’re based.

Denver.
So yeah, this one stings.

We spent all week trying to talk ourselves into it:

• “The backup QB won’t be that big of a drop-off.”

• “The defense will carry us.”

• “We just need to get to the fourth quarter with a chance.”

Instead, we got a very cold reminder of what the playoffs really do: they amplify your strengths and your weaknesses.

Early Hope: Stidham’s Shot + Sutton’s Six

For a brief moment, it felt like the script was flipping in our favor.

Jared Stidham – getting his first start in over 700 days – shook off the nerves, climbed the pocket, and uncorked an absolute 50-yard dime to Marvin Mims on 3rd-and-10. It was the throw of the night.

Next play: play-action, wide-open Courtland Sutton, touchdown.

Broncos up 7–0.
Crowd alive.
Defense humming.

With this defense? All you need is a lead and the maturity to take points when they’re there. Which leads us to…

The Turning Point: Fourth-and-Stubborn

The Broncos’ run game has been bad all year. That didn’t magically change because it was the AFC Championship.

Early on, Denver drives into Patriots territory. It’s 4th-and-1, no snow yet, wind manageable, automatic field goal range.

Analytics might whisper “go for it.”
Reality in January says: kick the ball, bank the points.

They go for it. They get stuffed.
And the momentum slowly drains out of the building.

From that moment on, it felt like Denver was playing uphill in a snowstorm… and then the literal snowstorm showed up to match the vibes.

When Bad Decisions Snowball… Literally

New England only gave up one touchdown the entire postseason coming into this game. They gave up one more to Denver and said, “that’s enough.”

The Patriots’ front didn’t need crazy blitzes – they just out-executed Denver’s offensive line with stunts and discipline. Even Quinn Meinerz, an All-Pro and a tone-setter, got beat badly a few times inside. That’s the kind of stuff that kills drives against a team like this.

Then came the backbreaker:

• Sean Payton calls a screen against a defense that lives on staying disciplined and not flying upfield.

• Stidham tries to be a hero instead of eating the sack.

• Two-hand shovel. Ball goes backwards.

• Live fumble. Patriots pounce.

• Drake May finishes the short field with a QB draw TD.

Tie game.
Crowd stunned.
You can feel the script flipping.

Third Quarter Curse, Again

If you’ve watched the Broncos the past two seasons, you know this:
The defense falls apart out of halftime.

Vance Joseph deserves plenty of credit for how this defense played at times this year, but he also deserves the smoke for how bad the third quarters have been – and this one was no different.

• Long, draining Patriots drive → field goal.

• Broncos offense? Six total plays deep into the second half.

• Deficit instead of a tie because of that earlier 4th-down decision.

Against this New England team – coached by Mike Vrabel, playing that suffocating “Dagestani wrestler” style of football – spotting them extra possessions is a death sentence.

No Turnovers, No Finish, No Super Bowl

The formula to beat the Patriots is simple on paper:

• Win the turnover battle

• Stop the QB run game

• Take your points when you get them

Denver went 0-for-3.

• Turnovers: Broncos finished –2. Patriots didn’t turn it over once.

• QB legs: Drake May quietly gashed them with his scrambling, especially on money downs.

• Points left on the field: Fourth-down miss in FG range, missed field goal in the snow, and a late interception when Stidham tried to force it downfield.

Final: Patriots 10, Broncos 7.

Not pretty. Not exciting. But brutally effective.

It wasn’t just the Broncos “choking.” New England forced this kind of game, and Denver never matched the discipline or situational awareness.

Vrabel came in, ripped out the old paint, and installed a nasty, joyless, winning culture in two years. And now the Patriots are heading to Santa Clara while the No. 1 seed Broncos are cleaning out lockers.

Lumen Field Track Meet: Seahawks 31, Rams 27

If Broncos–Patriots was a bar fight in a blizzard, Rams–Seahawks was a track meet in a thunder dome.

Same weekend.
Same league.
Completely different sport.

Sam Darnold, Statement Game

Let’s get this out of the way:

Sam Darnold is my Player of the Week.

His line:

• 26 of 30 passing

• 346 yards

• 3 TDs, 0 INTs

• Total command of the offense

This wasn’t the classic “Seattle wins with defense and running the ball.” Their defense struggled for big stretches of this game. Darnold had to actually win it – and he did.

Opening drive? Laser show. Big strike to Rashid Shaheed, finish with a Kenneth Walker TD.
Darnold looked completely unbothered by the oblique injury talk from last week.

Rams Keep Swinging

Early on it looked like the Rams forgot what time kickoff was.

Seattle up 7–0, moving the ball at will.
But LA’s defense settled in, and the offense finally woke up:

• Field goal to make it 7–3

• Another field goal to make it 10–6

• Then a long, 12-play, 87-yard drive capped by Matthew Stafford to Kyren Williams for the touchdown and a 13–10 Rams lead.

At that point, it felt like the Rams had stolen momentum and the script had flipped.

Then they made the same mistake Denver did in the other game:
They left too much time on the clock.

JSN and the Two-Minute Warning

With just under two minutes left in the half, Darnold got the ball back and immediately went into surgeon mode.

Up-tempo. Precision. No panic.

He marched Seattle down and finished the drive with a 14-yard touchdown to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who has quietly turned into a true route-running demon and a legit Offensive Player of the Year candidate.

Halftime: Seattle 17, LA 13.

You could feel the building tilt.

Special Teams Swing the Game

Third quarter starts, and the Rams defense finally forces a punt. Exactly what they needed.

Then disaster:

• Rams returner muffs the punt, falls down, ball back to Seattle.

• Next play: Darnold hits Jake Bobo for a touchdown.

Just like that: 24–13 Seahawks.

It’s incredible how similar this game was to the Broncos one in one specific way:
One special teams mistake completely re-wrote the flow.

Stafford Refuses to Go Quietly

Give Matthew Stafford his flowers.

He answered that gut punch with:

• A strike to tight end Colby Parkinson

• Two huge plays to Davante Adams

• A touchdown to Adams to cut it to 24–20

Then later, after Seattle extended the lead to 31–20, Stafford hit Puka Nacua for a bomb to make it 31–27.

The third quarter turned into pure chaos:

• Seahawks TD

• Rams TD

• Seahawks TD

• Rams TD

Four straight touchdown drives, trading haymakers in one of the loudest buildings in football.

The Play That Will Haunt LA

The Rams had multiple chances in the fourth quarter, but one moment sticks out.

Fourth-and-1.
Parkinson wide open dragging across the field.
Stafford puts it on him.
Green grass in front of him, likely a walk-in touchdown.

Drop.

That’s the difference between hosting the Lombardi in a few weeks or heading into exit interviews.

Later, inside the Seahawks’ 10-yard line, the Rams got stuffed twice – on 3rd and 4th down – and Seattle’s defense finally showed up when it mattered.

From there, Darnold and the offense bled the clock, picked up key first downs, and after a defensive holding call on LA with just over two minutes left, it was over.

Final: Seahawks 31, Rams 27.

Seattle goes back to the Super Bowl for the first time since… yeah, that one.

Super Bowl 60: Patriots vs Seahawks – The Malcolm Butler Rematch

So here we are.

Patriots vs Seahawks.
Vrabel vs McDonald.
Dagestani wrestler-style brutality vs Pacific Northwest chaos.

On paper, it’s easy to say:

• Seahawks scored 31 in the NFC title game.

• Patriots scored 10 but haven’t allowed more than 17 total points all postseason.

• Seattle’s defense is elite when it’s not trying to cover Davante Adams and friends.

Early lean?

I think Seattle should win this game. If Sam Darnold plays like he did against the Rams – poised, efficient, ruthless on third down – the Seahawks have too much balance on both sides of the ball.

But here’s the thing about the Patriots:

They don’t care what you think the game “should” look like.

They drag you into their fight:

• Low scoring

• Field position

• No turnovers

• Slowly suffocating your will to live for four quarters

It’s MMA, not track.
They’re not going for knockouts – they’re going for 50–45 unanimous decisions.

If Darnold blinks?
If Seattle gets cute in the red zone?
If McDonald’s defense has another coverage meltdown?

New England will walk out of Santa Clara with another banner and a new era officially stamped.

What’s Next on Far End of the Bench

This was just the instant reaction.

Coming up this week on the podcast and YouTube:

• Niko’s full in-person breakdown of freezing his soul off at Mile High

• Deeper film talk on why Denver’s offense vanished after the first quarter

• How Sam Darnold quietly rewrote his career narrative in one night

• Early Super Bowl 60 picks, props, and chaos predictions

📅 New full episode drops Thursday
📺 We go live on YouTube Thursdays as well
🔔 Make sure you’re subscribed and following @FEOTBPod everywhere so you don’t miss it.

And as always:

If you don’t quit…
Come on over here and sit on the Far End of the Bench.