FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — After easily winning the latest Tom Brady-Peyton Manning matchup, the New England Patriots hit their bye week on fire, with five straight victories.

They also know there is more work to be done.

“We gotta keep going. It’s like Coach (Bill Belichick) said after the game, seven wins don’t get you anything,” Brady said after outplaying Manning and leading the Patriots to a 43-21 blowout of the Denver Broncos, ending Denver’s four-game winning streak.

Brady threw four touchdown passes, and wide receiver Julian Edelman had one touchdown catch and returned a punt 84 yards for a TD to lead the way.

New England (7-2) scored 24 second-quarter points, built a 27-7 halftime lead and never looked back.

The Patriots got a leg up on the Broncos (6-2) in a possible battle for playoff postseason. New England lost at Denver in last year’s AFC Championship Game.

“They’re going to have a great record at the end of the year, we know that, and hopefully we do, too,” Brady said.

Brady holds an 11-5 advantage in his battles with Manning, counting the postseason. A loud chant of “Brady’s better” rang out from the crowd in the fourth quarter.

Brady completed 33 of 53 passes for 333 yards Sunday, and he is 133 of 197 for 1,601 yards and 18 touchdowns during the winning streak. He was picked off by Denver in the second half, his first interception in 175 passes during the five straight wins.

Edelman, who dropped four passes in the previous two games, caught nine for 89 yards.

Manning was 34 of 57 for 438 yards with two touchdown passes and two interceptions — the pick in the first half ending a streak of 132 passes without an interception. Much of his yardage was recorded with the game out of reach. His first TD pass, to tight end Julius Thomas, gave Manning at least one scoring pass in 47 consecutive games, tying him with Johnny Unitas for the third-longest streak in NFL history.

Running back Shane Vereen, wide receiver Brandon LaFell and tight end Rob Gronkowski caught the other Brady touchdown passes. New England’s Stephen Gostkowski kicked three field goals through the wind on a day that started stormy but ended just cold and windy.

Brady, making his 200th regular-season start and earning his 155th win as a starter, moved past Denver great John Elway into fifth place on the NFL’s all-time passing yardage list. His 62nd 300-yard game ties him with Brett Favre for fourth place, and his 22nd four-TD game moved him past Dan Marino into fourth place on that list.

The TD catch by Gronkowski, a 1-yarder after he made a one-hand catch at the 1, was his 50th in 59 career games, tying him with Randy Moss for the second-fewest games needed to make 50 touchdown catches. He also tied the club record for receiving TDs by a tight end and finished the day with nine catches for 105 yards, his 15th 100-yard game.

“Incredible,” Brady said of the one-hand grab. “That was one of the best catches I’ve ever seen.”

Gronkowski said, “It was a pretty good catch. Tom put it where I could make a play, so it just happened.”

The Patriots have scored 201 points during their winning streak.

Thomas posted his 10th touchdown catch of the season, making him the first Broncos tight end with back-to-back seasons of double-digit TD receptions.

Denver wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders had 10 catches for 151 yards, and fellow receiver Demaryius Thomas picked up 127 yards on seven catches, extending his franchise record with his fifth straight 100-yard game.

“They played really well,” Broncos linebacker Von Miller said of the Patriots. “We have to get that laser focus back and continue to grind.”

What the Patriots said:

“I’m not going to sit here and sugarcoat that one. When you go into the bye week, you get a week, and you don’t want to have to have that taste (of a loss) in your mouth. (Winning) makes things a little easier.” — Wide receiver/punt returner Julian Edelman.

“We’re just coming together. We’re playing as a team, and we stick together as a team, and the team chemistry is coming along very well. We got to keep it up, keep up the hard work and keep playing as a team.” — Tight end Rob Gronkowski.

“It wasn’t about Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos. It was about making sure we know what we’re doing, understanding the situations that we’re in — we just happened to be playing Peyton Manning and the Broncos — the best team in the league. We executed well, that’s what we did tonight. We executed well, and it showed tonight.” — Nose tackle Vince Wilfork.

What the Broncos said:

“We got to be better on the road. What are we, 1-2 on the road? … Got to play better on the road.” — Quarterback Peyton Manning.

“Tonight we definitely didn’t play our best, and we can’t come into Foxborough and play like that and expect to get a win.” — Wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders.

“Credit them. I think they had a good plan and they executed the plan.” — Coach John Fox.

What we learned about the Patriots:

1. New England can bounce back from a bad loss. Hammered by the Kansas City Chiefs in a Monday night game, the Patriots responded by scoring 201 points and winning five straight games. They are clicking on all cylinders and enter the bye week in great shape.

2. Pundits were starting to write off quarterback Tom Brady way too early. Yes, he is 37 and has all kinds of mileage on him, but Brady is playing as well as ever during the current winning streak, throwing 18 touchdown passes and just one interception. He thoroughly outplayed Denver quarterback Peyton Manning on Sunday, another sign things are just fine with the three-time Super Bowl champion.

–QB Tom Brady had another record-book kind of game while leading the Patriots to a 43-21 blowout of Denver on Sunday — his 11th win in 16 matchups with Peyton Manning. He was 33 of 53 for 333 yards and four touchdowns, and he is 133 of 197 for 1,601 yards and 18 touchdowns during the team’s five-game winning streak. He was picked off in the second half, his first interception in 175 passes during the winning streak. Making his 200th regular season start and notching his 155th win in those 200, Brady threw for enough yards to move past Denver great John Elway into fifth place on the NFL’s all-time list. His 62nd 300-yard game ties him with Brett Favre for fourth place at that list. It was also his 22nd four-TD game, moving him past Dan Marino into fourth place on that list. “Tom has a lot of heart,” cornerback Darrelle Revis said. “He’s probably our No. 1 leader on this team, and to see him go out there and execute and just be fearless … he’s been fearless out there.”

–WR/PR Julian Edelman, who dropped four passes in the previous two games, caught a touchdown pass and returned a punt 84 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter Sunday. That was his club-record fourth career punt return for a score. He had another TD catch overturned because he didn’t hold onto the ball as he fell, but he finished with nine catches for 89 yards.

–TE Rob Gronkowski had another big game. He caught a 1-yard touchdown pass, one play after a circus, one-hand, 20-yard catch brought the ball down to the 1. Gronkowski recorded his 50th touchdown in 59 career games, tying him with Randy Moss for the second-fastest to reach that plateau. He also tied the club record for receiving TDs by a tight end and had nine catches for 105 yards (his 15th 100-yard game). “Just a spectacular play by a great player,” QB Tom Brady said of the one-hand catch. Said Gronkowski: “It was a pretty good catch. “Tom put it where I could make a play, so it just happened.”

What we learned about the Broncos:

1. The 6-1 record that Denver brought into the game may have been a bit misleading. The Broncos fell to 1-2 on the road this season, with the win a game in which they struggled to beat the dreadful New York Jets. They are 5-0 at home. They play the next two games on the road, but those games are at Oakland and at St. Louis; the Raiders and Rams are a combined 3-15 on the season.

2. Quarterback Peyton Manning is well behind in his matchup battle with New England quarterback Tom Brady. Brady leads 11-5 in head-to-head showdowns, including the postseason, with victories in four of the past five — though Denver won the AFC title game on its home field last season. Manning was outplayed by Brady on Sunday, when the Patriots seriously outplayed the Broncos.

–QB Peyton Manning ran up some big passing numbers Sunday in Denver’s 43-21 loss to New England, but much of his yardage came with the game out of reach. Manning was 34 of 57 for 438 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions — the pick in the first half ending a streak of 132 passes without an interception. “This is 2014, and I thought in today’s game they were better than us,” Manning said. “I thought we were just pretty dead average on offense. I thought all of us were very below average, didn’t play well. That’s all I can speak for is me. I’ve got to play better and got to do that starting next week.”

–WR Demaryius Thomas recorded his fifth consecutive 100-yard receiving game Sunday, extending his club record. He had nine catches for 127 yards in the loss. For the season, he has 56 catches, one behind Emmanuel Sanders for the team lead, and a team-high 894 receiving yards.

–WR Wes Welker, a former Patriots favorite, heard boos from the crowd for leaving. He had three catches in the game but had a ball hit him in the chest and turn into an interception in the third quarter. Welker was drilled after the ball was gone and left the game with a back injury.

–K Brandon McManus, who missed a day of practice during the week because of a groin problem, hit the right upright with a 41-yard field goal attempt that would have cut Denver’s deficit to 20-10 in the second quarter. It was his first miss in seven attempts of less than 50 yards this season.