Jim Nantz: Patriots Cracked The Code Last Time
Saturday the Patriots look to beat the Broncos at Gillette to move one step closer to another Super Bowl.
CBS NFL play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz spoke with Toucher & Rich to talk about the possible ratings for this game, Tim Tebow and the Denver defense.
There has been so much hype for this Patriots-Broncos game on Saturday night. Does Nantz think it will be the highest rated playoff game of all time other than the Super Bowl?
Read: Broncos Defense Looks To Shut Down Brady's Targets
"I don't know, here's the thing it's got to be competitive. You know the game has got to be close for the audience to stay with it. I know everyone's all excited because the Wild Card game last week did just monster ratings, but you'd be surprised some of those championship games AFC or NFC championship games have been in the mid 30s. That's going to be tough to top. It might be the highest rated divisional game of all time."
Most if not all the talk leading up to this game has been about Denver quarterback Tim Tebow. Even places where you don't normally find football talk you can find them talking about Tebow. With all the Tebow talk if you're a player on the Patriots are you feeling disrespected and might that be a benefit for these guys?
"I think there's a possibility of that. I will say this though, the Patriots have already been through this I mean it was only four weeks ago that there was a fever pitch about the match up out in Denver. It wasn't a playoff game, but it was the highest rated regular season game and there was this same kind of build up going into that one."
Read: Brady Looks To End Playoff Skid
Has all the Tebow coverage and what it's been built up to amazed Nantz?
"The snowball affect is pretty amazing it really is and then when you meet with him, and this is the fifth straight week now that our team has broadcast the Broncos, you meet with him and he's really not aware of all of that."
The guys moved on to discuss the game on Saturday. When you look at the defense of the Denver Broncos there has been a lot of hype, but if you look at the numbers you see that they might be a bit over rated. Will this defense be able to stop the two tight end attack of the Patriots?
"The interesting thing about the defense is that they gave up this year four games of 40 points or more, that's the most in the league."
Denver beat the Steelers in a game that everyone thought they would lose. Is it dangerous for a team to get too high over a win when there is still work to be done?
"I don't think that's going to hurt them guys, I really don't. I know there was an unbelievable high winning a game in overtime beating the Pittsburgh Steelers, having not won a playoff game since beating New England back in the 2005 season, it had been a long, long time...I don't think that's a factor, I think the factor here is how are they going to stop the New England Patriots."
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