FOXBOROUGH, Mass. Ultra Boost 19 Canada . - The Patriots streak of 11 post-season games as a favourite is over. For the first time since the AFC championship game against Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts in 2007, New England is a playoff underdog — against Manning and the Denver Broncos in the AFC championship game on Sunday. Tom Brady & Co. are willing to use that as motivation for the game that will send the winner to the Super Bowl. "We play with a chip on our shoulder," wide receiver Danny Amendola said. "We like to play that way." Count the Patriots out? Go right ahead, fullback James Develin said. "I cant really speak for everyone, but I personally love the underdog story," he said. "It just kind of keeps a little bit of the pressure off you and I just like to prove the doubters wrong." Brady sounded the first "woe is us" note during his weekly appearance on WEEI radio Monday. "I know when we played Baltimore nobody picked us to win," Brady said. "Im sure no ones going to pick us to win this week. Weve had our backs against the wall for a while. Really, the whole season weve lost players, and teams have really counted us out. "Weve got a bunch of underdogs on our team, and well be an underdog again." The Ravens were favoured to extend their four-game winning streak in the next to last game of the regular season. Baltimore was at home, but the Patriots won 41-7. Now New England (13-4) is preparing to go on the road again. And Bradys teammates figure if playing the underdog card against Denver (14-3) is good enough for him, its good enough for them. "If Toms going to embrace it, Im going to embrace it," New England running back LeGarrette Blount said with a smile. "Thats the leader of this team, and if thats how he feels, Im sure thats how most of the guys out here feel." In that loss to the Colts seven years ago, the Patriots held an 18-point lead late in the first half but lost 38-34. Indianapolis went on to win the Super Bowl. That also was the Patriots most recent playoff road game. Since then, theyre 7-2 at home and 0-2 in Super Bowls at neutral sites. This season, they were underdogs at home against Denver on Nov. 24, but won 34-31 in overtime after trailing 24-0 at halftime. Broncos tight end Julius Thomas missed that game with a knee injury. Now hes back, one of five Denver receivers with at least 60 catches this season. "Hes a heck of a football player, a playmaker, go-to guy for them," Patriots safety Steve Gregory said. "He can create mismatches and things like that, so hes a good football player. But they have a lot of good football players." The 250-pound Blount creates mismatches as well — able to elude big linemen and run over small defensive backs. He ran for 166 yards and four touchdowns in Saturday nights 43-22 win over Indianapolis after rushing for 189 yards and two touchdowns in the previous game, a 34-20 win over Buffalo in the regular-season finale. "I can do a lot of improving," Blount said after watching video of the Indianapolis game. "Ive seen a couple of holes I could have hit, and Ive seen a couple of cuts I could have made. Im going to go out there and look at what theyre going to give me, and hopefully explode somewhere." Blount got off to a slow start this season, his first with the Patriots. It would be dangerous to underestimate him now, just as the Broncos would be unwise to put too much stock into their status as favourites. After all, Brady fooled all those teams that bypassed him in the 2000 draft until the Patriots took him in the sixth round with the 199th overall pick. "He came into the league as a big underdog," Develin said, "so Im sure hes used to that." Nmd r1 Canada Sale . -- The Atlanta Braves are facing the possibility of losing another pitcher for the season after general manager Frank Wren said Saturday that Cory Gearrin has a serious injury to his right elbow. Ultra Boost Parley Canada . -- Josh Smith made a 3-pointer as time expired and finished with 20 points to lift the Detroit Pistons to a 99-98 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday night in both teams exhibition finale. http://www.yeezyshoescanada.com/ultra-boost-canada.html . Long snapper Patrick Mannelly announced Friday that he is retiring after a 16-year-career with the Bears, a span in which he played in a team record 245 games and snapped the ball 2,282 times. MIAMI -- The flop is having an impact on the playoffs, and its being caught much more than it was in the regular season. Miami guard Dwyane Wade became the latest recipient of a post-season flopping fine Monday when the NBA ordered him to give up $5,000 after a review showed he over-exaggerated a foul during Game 2 of the finals that was charged to San Antonios Manu Ginobili. And theres an ironic twist -- Ginobili is often considered a master flopper, but he wasnt even warned once about it this season. "He took a swipe and he hit me," Wade said Monday, before the fine was announced. "It was a late call by the ref, but he called it." The league saw it a little differently. It was the fifth flopping violation of the playoffs, which works out to one in every 17.2 games. The NBA said 35 flops were caught in the regular season, or one in every 35.1 games. Players are not fined in the regular season until their second flop of the year; in the playoffs, every flop is a fine. "Flopping," Miami guard Shane Battier once said, "is a silent killer." Well, unless it works. Wade drew the foul against Ginobili with 4:09 left in the second quarter on Sunday night. Ginobili, who took a big swipe at the ball about 35 feet from the basket, wound up going to the bench with his third foul of the half. Wade went to the line and made the two resulting free throws, since Miami was already in the bonus. The Heat wound up winning by two points. "I saw Manu coming out of the corner of my eye to try to steal it so my only thing was to make sure that he didnt steal it," Wade said. "He swiped and he wound up hitting me and the ref called a foul. We move on." The Heat-Spurs matchup is tied 1-1, with Game 3 in Miami on Tuesday night. Some of the flops in the playyoffs have been almost circuslike acting jobs, including a pair by Indiana guard Lance Stephenson -- the official leaguewide leader in flopping this season with two violations in the regular season and two more in the post-season. Yeezy Canada Sale. . Hes had to pay $20,000 for those flops, or basically about 2 per cent of his seasons salary. For Wade, whos made nearly $19 million in salary this season, the $5,000 was mere pocket change. And situations like that were pointed out last year by now-retired NBA Commissioner David Stern, who said the small fine "isnt enough. Youre not going to cause somebody to stop it for $5,000 when the average players salary is $5.5 million." Stern added then that anyone who thought the fine would stop the flop is allowing "hope to prevail over reason." So it would be no surprise if tougher flopping penalties were at least discussed when the NBAs competition committee when that group meets this summer. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said hes not surprised that the rate goes up in the playoffs, saying Monday that it could be as simple a reason as "more people in the league office watching each possession." Besides Stephenson and Wade, the other post-season flop fines have been assessed to Indianas Roy Hibbert and the Spurs Tiago Splitter. All of those flops were cited in the conference-final round or later. Indianas season ended with a third straight playoff loss to the Heat. And not surprisingly, it wouldnt seem like the Pacers are rooting for their conference member this time of year -- a media relations official from East finalists tweeted shortly after the Wade-Ginobili play Sunday that the Heat guard deserved a flopping fine and even made what seemed like a lighthearted plea to the league: "Cmon NBA, do it for Lance." ' ' '