DENVER -- Each week of the season, Denver Broncos coach Gary Kubiak designates one player to speak to the team the night before a game. It might be one who spent time with the upcoming opponent or who has overcome some obstacle. Or who has something the team needs to hear. And sometimes it all just fits the time and place.
On Saturday night, Kubiak chose linebacker DeMarcus Ware, who had waited 11 seasons, through 134.5 sacks, to play in his first conference title game. Now, after the Broncos’ 20-18 victory over the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday, Ware will play in his first Super Bowl.
Ware had stood in front of his team the night before with one powerful attention-getter.
"I opened up [a bag] and I pulled out the first Super Bowl trophy that the Broncos won and I sat it on the table and I just got really quiet," Ware said. "And I seen in all the guys’ eyes how they felt, and I felt the same way. And from that point I just knew what it meant to those guys. … It was a big, emotional night."
A big, emotional night, followed by a bigger, emotional day. The Broncos will go to Super Bowl 50 powered by a defense that is anvil-hardened, tested by some of the best quarterbacks the league has to offer: Joe Flacco, Matthew Stafford, Derek Carr, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers (twice) and Ben Roethlisberger.
And with Sunday’s win, the Broncos have also beaten Tom Brady twice. In this one, the Broncos pounded Brady with a fervor that was largely unfamiliar to the future Hall of Famer.
Sure, Brady was within one more rabbit-out-of-the-hat play in the closing seconds; on fourth-and-10, his 40-yard dart to Rob Gronkowski moved the ball to the Broncos’ 10-yard line, and four plays later he found Gronkowski in the back of the end zone. But on the two-point conversion try that would've tied the score, cornerback Aqib Talib knocked Brady's pass away.
After living on the edge so often this season, the Broncos' defense has become accustomed to the view.
"That’s just what our defense wanted," running back C.J. Anderson said. "They’re the best defense on the planet. … We trust those guys to do what they do, because they keep doing what they do."
The Broncos hit Brady on 23 of his dropbacks, sacked him four times and intercepted two of his passes. And it was a performance that was two seasons in the making, right from the time the Seattle Seahawks dismantled the Broncos’ record-setting offense in Super Bowl XLVIII.
In the offseason following that 43-8 cave-in, Broncos executive vice president of football operations/general manager John Elway opened owner Pat Bowlen's checkbook to sign Ware, Talib and safety T.J. Ward in the first hours of free agency. And when the Broncos turned in a lackluster, emotionless playoff loss to the Indianapolis Colts last January, Elway changed coaching staffs. Kubiak was hired, and he brought in Wade Phillips to run the defense.
"And, man, Coach Wade has been an awesome, awesome addition. He understands what we’re good at. He gave us an identity," cornerback Chris Harris Jr. said. "He bought in to us and we bought in to him."
The Broncos led the league in total defense for the first time in franchise history, were No. 1 in sacks and pass defense, No. 3 in run defense and No. 4 in scoring defense.
The Broncos are 11-3 this season, including two playoff wins, in games decided by seven points or fewer. New England's offense was 2-of-15 on third downs Sunday. Brady was battered and the Patriots, who were 10-0 with wide receiver Julian Edelman in the lineup this season, fell as he finished with 53 rather harmless yards.
"We go out and play our game. We don’t look at clocks, we don’t look at nothing," Talib said. "We go out and play our football. We know that Wade is going to put [us] in the best position, and we go out there and play our ball."
"And what does it mean? Super Bowl," Miller said. "It means one more game to play alongside my guys and do what all everybody in that locker room wants to do, win a Super Bowl."