No one has done better against Tom Brady than the Broncos. Here's a look back at their history together

Sunday afternoon, in front of approximately 5,700 onlookers at Empower Field at Mile High, a Tom Brady-led team will face the Denver Broncos for what is likely to be the final time.

History is on the line, of course. When Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Carolina Panthers last Sunday, the record of Brady-led teams against Carolian improved to 4-3, including Super Bowl XLVIII.

That leaves the Broncos standing as the only team with a winning record against teams for which Brady started. Denver’s 9-8 mark includes a 3-1 record in playoff games.

While the New Orleans Saints could have a say in their twice-a-year games with the Bucs, they must still overturn the 4-2 advantage by Brady-led teams against them, a ledger that includes the Saints’ Week 1 win over the Bucs.

So this is the chance for the Broncos to cement their status as the most viable roadblock to Brady, who has run over most of the NFL like a Sherman tank over the last two decades.

A look back at Brady against the Broncos:

THE FIRST …

Brady was inactive when the Belichick-led Patriots defeated the Broncos at Mile High Stadium on Oct. 1, 2000. His debut came a year later, when he made his fifth career start in a game at what was then known as Invesco Field at Mile High.

By the start of the fourth quarter of that 2001 game, Brady’s career-opening streak of passes without an interception stood at 162. Then he threw four in the next 15 minutes — including one that Deltha O’Neal picked off at the Denver 19-yard line and another that Walker grabbed at the goal line.

Walker had two interceptions, a game-clinching pick-six that resulted from Patriots wide receiver Troy Brown running the wrong route. He admitted to the snafu after the game, saying, “I screwed it up. I wasn’t on the same page with [Brady]. He was expecting me to do one thing and I thought that I should do something else.”

Denver won, 31-20.

THE BEST (FOR THE BRONCOS) …

For pure emotion and significance, nothing tops the 2015 AFC Championship Game, in which Malik Jackson, Derek Wolfe, Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware took turns knocking Brady off-balance and disrupting one throw after another. Eventually, Brady found something of a rhythm, but one final pass rush led to one last errant throw on a two-point conversion that Bradley Roby intercepted, sending the Broncos to Super Bowl 50.

THE WORST (FOR THE BRONCOS) …

Where do you begin?

There was the 2017 game, when Isaiah McKenzie’s muffed punt return in the opening moments was the snowball that became an avalanche of special-teams errors. There was the drudgery of a midseason blowout at Foxborough in 2014, the collapse of November 2013 and the tedium of the December 2016 game in which the Broncos offense appeared incapable of anything.

But for pure start-to-finish misery, nothing tops the divisional-playoff game in January 2012, a 45-10 pounding in which Tim Tebow and the offense was out of his depth and Brady surgically picked at cornerbacks not named Champ Bailey. The Broncos never had a chance.

GAME-BY-GAME:

Oct. 28, 2001: Broncos 31, Patriots 20

• Brady’s line: 25-of-38, 203 yards, 2 TD, 4 INT, 57.1 rating
• Notable: Brady’s career-opening streak of 162 consecutive passes ended with four fourth-quarter interceptions.

Oct. 27, 2002: Broncos 24, Patriots 16

• Brady’s line: 15-of-29, 130 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 75.4 rating
• Notable: Denver sacked Brady five times, including twice to end the Patriots’ first two possessions in three-and-outs. The Broncos led 14-0 and 21-7 before New England rallied, but a deep Brian Griese-to-Ashley Lelie connection down the right sideline allowed the Broncos to run out the clock and clinch the win.

Nov. 3, 2003: Patriots 30, Broncos 26

• Brady’s line: 20-of-35, 350 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT, 108.0 rating
• Notable: Only an Ashley Lelie drop prevented the Broncos from a stunning upset. Down to third-team QB Danny Kanell, the Broncos had the ball and a 26-23 lead after New England took an intentional safety rather than punt the football out of its end zone. But Lelie’s drop of a third-and-6 pass with 2:31 remaining gave New England one more chance, which Brady turned into a game-winning touchdown drive. “I would rather get blown out than have it come down the way it came down, and lose it that way,” safety Nick Ferguson said after the game.

Oct. 16, 2005: Broncos 28, Patriots 20

• Brady’s line: 24-of-46, 299 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 79.9 rating
• Notable: A blitz-heavy defense called by coordinator Larry Coyer kept the Patriots off-balance, allowing the Broncos to build a 21-3 halftime lead. “”I think we knew they were coming and they were coming,” Brady said after the game. “For the most part, we didn’t pick it up.” New England adjusted after halftime, but it was too little, too late.

Jan. 14, 2006: Broncos 27, Patriots 13

• Brady’s line: 20-of-36, 341 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT, 74.0 rating
• Notable: A near pick-6 covering the length of the field for Champ Bailey is the most memorable moment, but the game itself was significant in that it snapped New England’s 10-game postseason winning streak.

Sep. 24, 2006: Broncos 17, Patriots 7

• Brady’s line: 31-of-55, 320 yards, 1 TD, – INT, 79.4 rating
• Notable: This was part of a 6-game season-opening stretch of dominance for Denver’s defense. During that run, the Broncos allowed just 44 points (7.3 per game) and two touchdowns. Both of them came in the fourth quarter of games when the Broncos led 17-0, including the Patriots’ window-dressing score.

Oct. 11, 2009: Broncos 20, Patriots 17 (OT)

• Brady’s line: 19-of-33, 215 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, 97.4 rating
• Notable: Throwback uniforms, Josh McDaniels, wild fist-pumps after the game-winning field goal and the false dawn of a 5-0 start (that would be 6-0 after a win at San Diego the following week). It was a game unlike any other in Broncos history, and also a complete aberration that masked the dark days to come.

Dec. 18, 2011: Patriots 41, Broncos 23

• Brady’s line: 23-of-34, 320 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, 117.3 rating
• Notable: The 6-game Tim Tebow-led winning streak ended with a thud, as Brady guided the Patriots to 27 consecutive points in the second and third quarters after the Broncos took an early 16-7 lead.

Jan. 14, 2012: Patriots 45, Broncos 10

• Brady’s line: 26-of-34, 363 yards, 6 TD, 1 INT, 137.6 rating
• Notable: New England’s plan on this frigid night was clear: Don’t throw at Champ Bailey, but throw at anyone else. Brady threw at Brady just once. He threw at Andre Goodman nine times and then-rookie Chris Harris Jr. seven times, with three touchdowns coming against Goodman and two against Bailey.

Oct. 7, 2012: Patriots 31, Broncos 21

• Brady’s line: 23-of-31, 223 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 104.6 rating
• Notable: Brady was effective, but the story of the day was the Patriots’ running game. New England ran 54 times — the most rushing attempts for any Brady-led team — in playing keep-away to perfection.

Nov. 24, 2013: Patriots 34, Broncos 31 (OT)

• Brady’s line: 34-of-50, 344 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 107.4 rating
• Notable: The cliche’ “a tale of two halves” should have been retired after this game, as Brady’s Patriots dominated the second half as throughly as Peyton Manning and the Broncos controlled the first. In the end, it was a punt that bounced off Tony Carter that made the difference. It was a game for which a tie would have been a truly appropriate result. Alas, the Broncos walked away with their third loss at Gillette Stadium in a 22-month span.

Jan. 19, 2014: Broncos 26, Patriots 16

• Brady’s line: 24-of-38, 277 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 93.9 rating
• Notable: Terrance Knighton had the game of his life and Brady didn’t get untracked until after the Broncos led, 26-3. This evened the Brady-Manning postseason series at two wins apiece, with the tiebreaker still to come.

Nov. 2, 2014: Patriots 43, Broncos 21

• Brady’s line: 33-of-53, 333 yards, 4 TD, 1 INT, 97.4 rating
• Notable: A morning snowstorm blitzed Gillette Stadium, and then the Patriots raced past the Broncos, riding two Julian Edelman touchdowns — including one on an 84-yard punt return — to a 27-7 halftime lead. New England kept the Broncos at arm’s length after that.

Nov. 29, 2015: Broncos 30, Patriots 24 (OT)

• Brady’s line: 23-of-42, 280 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 99.3 rating
• Notable: A fumbled punt turned momentum in the Broncos’ favor, and in the fourth quarter, Brock Osweiler outdueled Brady, guiding the Broncos back from a 21-7 deficit for a win that would end up being the difference in determining the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs.

Jan. 24, 2016: Broncos 20, Patriots 18

• Brady’s line: 27-of-56, 310 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT, 56.4 rating
• Notable: A pass rush the likes of which Brady had rarely seen battered the veteran quarterback. Denver’s defenders hit Brady 18 times, and DeMarcus Ware led the way with seven. Meanwhile, New England’s defenders hit Manning just four times. For the fifth time, a Manning-led team ended Brady’s season — three from Peyton Manning and two from Eli, whose New York Giants defeated Brady twice in Super Bowls.

Dec. 12, 2016: Patriots 16, Broncos 3

• Brady’s line: 16-of-32, 188 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT, 68.2 rating
• Notable: Brady’s completion percentage of 50.0 was his worst in any of his regular-season games against the Broncos, and almost as bad as his 48.2-percent figure in the AFC Championship Game 11 months earlier. But Denver’s languid offense was both the resistible force and the immovable object; it went three-and-out on five consecutive series to open the second half, stomping the Broncos’ hopes like grapes in a bucket.

Nov. 12, 2017: Patriots 41, Broncos 16

• Brady’s line: 33-of-53, 333 yards, 4 TD, 1 INT, 97.4 rating
• Notable: Brady was effective, but the lingering stench for the Broncos came from their special teams, which gave the Patriots a short field via an Isaiah McKenzie fumble, allowed Dion Lewis to race 103 yards for a kickoff-return touchdown and allowed a blocked punt. New England led for all but the first 2:24 of a dreadful game that encapsulated the three-phase failures of Vance Joseph’s 2017 Broncos.