Playing at Denver’s Mile High Stadium presents a challenge to visiting teams not just because of its elevation of 5,280 feet. The Broncos’ home arena also is one of the loudest in all of football, which in turn puts considerable pressure on opposing offenses: communication will be vital, one way or another.
The New England Patriots know this, and they are making sure to prepare accordingly. In fact, they have prepared for just this scenario throughout the season.
“We’ve worked a silent count. We’ve worked a silent count throughout the season,” explained head coach Mike Vrabel. “We’ve worked it when we weren’t necessarily going on the road, just trying to figure that we would need to. We went through that stretch of home games — there were games that we were just focused on saying, ‘Hey, let’s just do it today just to work on it so that we can have it when we need it.’ And we’ll certainly need it this week.”
So far this season, the Patriots’ approach has served them well. After all, they were the only team in the NFL to finish the regular season with a perfect record on the road.
In order to keep the streak going after back-to-back home playoff games, they will need their pre-snap communication to be on point in what will be a deafening stadium. Of course, the 2025 Patriots have some experience with those, as quarterback Drake Maye made sure to point out.
Maye does expect Broncos fans to take it to another level, but the Patriots feel confident in their readiness.
“I use a silent count every road game,” he said. “Really, I think every road game this season we’ve used it. I think the loudness of the stadium for this week will be different than what we’ve heard, just because of the AFC Championship at a road opponent that has had history of winning Super Bowls and playing in playoff games and has a great team.
“So, the magnitude of the noise will probably be something we haven’t seen this year yet, but a silent count is something we’ve been working all year. We’ve been in Buffalo and Baltimore using silent counts where it’s tough to hear in the huddle and tough for the O-line to hear me. So, we just go in the silent and we’ve done a good job.”
