One inevitable result of losing an AFC Championship is mentally re-living all the what-ifs and might-have-beens that a close loss generates. Let’s call it a regret list. New England’s loss to Denver has most likely spawned two regret lists for Patriot Nation and the folks down at Foxboro to anguish over.
-Regret List #1, Home Field Advantage: There is little doubt that Denver’s home field played a significant role in the Broncos win. Here are the plays and decisions that forced New England on the road for the AFC Championship.
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Fumbled punt at Denver: Leading 21-7 in the 4th quarter at Denver, the Patriots Chris Harper spurred a Broncos’ comeback when he fumbled away a punt return. While Harper should shoulder much of this blame, Bill Belichick, with his team ahead by 14, should have given clear instructions to his third-string punt returner that he is not to, under any circumstances, attempt to return any punts. In the bad weather at Denver, it should have been all fair catches in the 4th quarter.
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Onside kick against Philadelphia: There were a lot of plays that the Patriots wish they could have back from their stunning home loss to the Eagles, but none more than the goofy, ill-timed, Nate Ebner onside pooch-kick-thing that Belichick dialed up. The Patriots led 14-0 at the time, and allowed Philadelphia back in the game with the completely unnecessary decision to onside kick. The Eagles, perhaps motivated by the disrespect of the attempted onside, scored on the ensuing drive and ripped off 35 unanswered points.
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Jets overtime: While I defended Belichick’s decision to kickoff in overtime, the NFL is a results-based business and the results indicate that this decision blew up in their face.
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Miami game plan: The Patriots week 17 loss at Miami is when they officially surrendered home field advantage. The loss was largely the product of New England’s bizarre run-run-run-run game plan, that was presumably meant to protect Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski from injury. They not only lost the game but Brady and possibly Gronkowski were both injured during the game. To paraphrase that old Ben Franklin quote: “Those that sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.” They would have been better off just starting Jimmy Garoppolo and Scott Chandler, and throwing the ball 40 times.
-Regret List #2, AFC Championship: In-game regrets are always on the forefront of everyone’s mind following any tough loss. These are the plays from Sunday that will most likely be rattling around in the brain of Belichick and company for the entire offseason.
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Brady’s interception to Von Miller: How exactly did Brady not notice the 240 pound All-Pro linebacker standing in front of Gronkowski? This was as bad a pass as you will see Brady throw. It also continues a frustrating recent trend of Brady throwing bad interceptions in playoff games, something he did in all three games of last year’s postseason. It’s one of those things you tend to forget when the team wins the Super Bowl.
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Owen Daniels’ touchdowns: The first TD seemed to confuse the defense, leaving Daniels so open Manning could have drop kicked the ball to him. On the second TD, Jaime Collins was badly juked by Daniels, a player half as fast as Collins and 1/10th as athletic.
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Emmanuel Sanders/Malcolm Butler jump ball: Q: How could noodle-arm Peyton Manning possibly complete a pass 34-yards downfield? A: Because your best DB fails to knock down one of his fluttering balloon balls. Butler also had an easy INT lined up late in the 4th quarter and inexplicably swatted it down like he was playing with a 14 point lead.
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Danny Amendola drop: I have no idea why more people aren’t talking about this. Amendola dropped an easy pass late in the 4th quarter that would have given New England a 1st and goal near the 5-yard line. Might have been the worst Patriot play of the game.
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Failed two-point conversion: How does Brady not throw it to Gronk? Might be an even bigger mistake than the Von Miller interception.
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Gostkowski’s miss: Not only did this probably cost New England a berth in Super Bowl 50, the pain is compounded by the cruel irony that Belichick was one of the strong advocates for the offseason rule change that moved the extra point back. How do you think he feels about that decision now?
-To kick or not to kick: It baffles me that people actually think the Patriots should have kicked a field goal on either of their 4th downs, trailing by 8 points late in the 4th quarter. Talk about hindsight. How could Belichick possibly have known his team would have three sustained drives late in that game. Through three quarters the Patriots’ offense had zero drives over 50 yards. Belichick elected not to kick the field goal because he was probably concerned that New England might not make it back to the red zone.
-Cannon fodder: Of course it didn’t help that New England’s second 4th and 1 was turned into a 4th and 6 by a Marcus Cannon penalty. Marcus Cannon was awful in this game. He played one of the wor……..do I actually have to waste time explaining how bad he was on Sunday? Can somebody please just take this horse behind the barn so I don’t ever have to watch or write about him again. Ever.
-The least interesting man in the world: During the two-point conversion Phil Simms told the viewers that Brady didn’t throw to Gronk because he was double-covered. He literally said this while they were showing a slow motion replay of Gronkowski open in single-coverage.
-Thunderstruck: During the AFC Championship Brady was hit 20 times. Some even put the number at 25. To put that in perspective, even at 20 hits, that would be more than any quarterback has sustained in one NFL game since 2006 – a span that covers over 2,400 games.
-Attack of the flying squirrel: Tom Brady’s experience in Denver might have been even worse than it looked. According to MMQB, after the game one anonymous Bronco’s pass rusher said, in reference to Brady, “I tried to rub my nuts in his face”. I guess it wasn’t enough that they beat Brady like a prison pinata stuffed with pardons, apparently they had to sexually demean him as well. Just remember Denver, what goes around comes around. In two weeks, with over 100 million people watching, it’s most likely going to be Peyton Manning spending the majority of the game on his back fending off pass rusher’s genitals.
-Not-so-happy ending: The Patriots finished a very un-Patriot-like 3-5 to close out the year: Remember when New England was 10-0 and everybody was struggling to find one loss on their remaining schedule?
-Future Hall-of-Famer vs. Texans’ castoff: Perhaps the most shocking thing that happened Sunday was defensive coordinator Wade Phillips badly outcoaching Belichick and Josh McDaniels. It’s even more impressive when you consider that just one year ago Phillips was unemployed and couldn’t even get an interview.
The best way to defend Brady is to never let him get comfortable and Denver employed this strategy brilliantly. According to SIs Greg Bedard Denver did not use the same pass rush once in the entire 1st half. This constant change befuddled Brady, who looked uncomfortable and out-of-sorts for the entire half.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell wrote a great piece breaking down Phillips’ game plan on Sunday. It’s worth a read but here it is in a snap shot: The normally aggressive Phillips surprised New England’s staff by blitzing on a lower percentage of plays (16.4) than a Phillips-led defense has in over 8 years. In fact, Phillips actually took things in the other direction, rushing just 3 men on 14 of New England’s pass plays. Entering the game, Denver had only done that on 30 pass plays all season. On those 14 plays Brady had just 14 yards passing for a quarterback rating of 9.5. Phillips also deployed just 5 men in the box on a shockingly high number of plays, 30, essentially begging New England to run the ball. While Denver added many new wrinkles, the foundation of their strategy was very similar to those old Rex Ryan game plans, where the former Jets coach would practically dare New England to either run the ball or throw deep; two things they have struggled to do most of the year.
Belichick had no answers for any of it. Yes, he was hamstrung by a brutal performance from his offensive line, but still, you would have thought the best coach in the NFL would have had some kind of counterpunch up his sleeve. Nobody makes better in-game adjustments than Belichick, but on Sunday he appeared to be caught completely off-guard by everything Phillips threw at him. In some ways it was emblematic of that nightmarish evening eight years ago against the Giants in Super Bowl XLII. On that night, like Sunday, Belichick failed to bring in extra bodies to max-protect Brady and allow him more time to locate his receivers. Where was the extra TE to chip DeMarcus Ware? Where was the extra lineman to double team Miller? Instead Belichick left his tackles on an island and allowed his best player to take a historic beating.
-The Chris Berman defense: The only real second guess on the defensive side of the ball was New England’s decision to have it’s defensive backs spend the early part of the game lined up so far back-back-back-back-back. With points at a premium, the Patriots gifted the Broncos their first touchdown by allowing Manning to complete passes in front of coverage that was way too soft. Their corners lined up like they were facing 2004 Manning. What could Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia have possibly seen on film that led them to give Manning that much respect? If the Patriots had attacked Denver from the start, like they did in the second half, they are probably the ones packing for Santa Clara.
-Flip flop: The decision not to defer when New England won the coin toss was also strange. Why let Denver’s best unit set the tone with a possible stop and allow the sold out crowd to start the game in a frenzy?
-They beat him like a rented mule: You want to hear a scary stat to further appreciate the 20-25 hits that Brady took on Sunday? In that Giants Super Bowl, the previous high water mark for Brady beatdowns, he was only hit 9 times.
-NFL wife swap: Before we rush to anoint Manning the better QB in “Manning vs. Brady XVII” consider what would have happened had the two QBs switched teams. If Manning had played quarterback under Brady’s conditions the end of the game would have looked like an episode of ‘Dexter’, with Manning’s limbs and body parts scattered all over the field.
-Mea culpa: Last year I wrote that New England’s championship window might have slammed shut when they failed to sign CB Darrelle Revis. I was 100% wrong. Belichick, once again, knew when to cut bait with an overpriced veteran. But I also wrote that they should sign NFL bad boy Richie Incognito to shore up their offensive line. Incognito had a great year in Buffalo and would have helped out a lot on Sunday.
-Wes Amendola: A crucial drop in a championship game; looks like Amendola is filling Wes Welker’s role quite well.
-Team Rice vs. Team Irvin: If they cancelled the Pro Bowl would you even notice? Me neither.
-Up in smoke: Looks like Chandler Jones isn’t the only one that enjoys getting all jacked up on synthetic weed. Seahawks fullback,Derrick Coleman, is being recommended for felony prosecution stemming from a October 14th hit-and-run incident. According to the police report Coleman was speeding, struck another car and kept his foot on the gas pushing the other car 260 feet and causing it to flip over. Police also say that when they find him he was visibly impaired and admitted to smoking “spice”, another term for synthetic marijuana. In his car they found a glass pipe and four bags of synthetic weed. One of the bags was open and was labeled “f’d up”. Well, at least his drug dealer was honest about the effects.
-Into thin air: Watching Gronkowski struggling with the altitude, I couldn’t help but wonder why the Patriots waited until the end of the week to travel to Denver. I am no physiologist but common sense would indicate that spending 4 or 5 days in the high altitude could only help your team acclimate.
-Road trip: In the last 5 years the Patriots have won just one game against a playoff team with 10+ wins. That lone win was last year against the Indianapolis Colts.
-Check your milk carton: It might be time to officially send out a search party to locate TE Vernon Davis. After he was traded for by Denver in back in November it was believed that Davis, not Owen Daniels, would be the one making a big impact in the postseason. In his last five games he has one catch for five yards.
-Geek squad: Headset problems, tablet problems…….you would think a billion dollar business like the NFL would be a little bit better at the basics.
-Match.com: Here’s a what-if scenario for Patriots fans to ponder. What if Archie Manning and Olivia Williams had a lousy time on their first date and thus never gave the NFL Eli and Peyton. Might we be talking about Brady going for his 8th Super Bowl?
On to the offseason.