I came across the ultimate spoiled Pats fan comment in my internet travels the other day, someone complaining that the Pats have “only won one Super Bowl in the last 11 years” and I had to laugh. How incredibly easy it is to dismiss how impossible it is to consistently win in the NFL. No, the Patriots have made that part look easy and we’ve all just come to accept that ho-hum we locked up our 13th AFC East title in 15 years and came within a couple plays of going to our third Super Bowl in five years but that’s not good enough.
This also circles the bigger point of how whatever deficiency is exhibited in the season-ender is what everyone obsesses about for the entire offseason. Oh, and that of course must also include adding a deep threat and more pass rushers. This cycle happens every year on the outside, meanwhile inside the walls of Gillette Stadium, the Patriots just keep doing what they do despite the calls to blow certain things up each and every year.
Yes, the offensive line got toasted time and again in the AFC Championship, leaving many Pats fans to think that upgrading third-string swing tackle Marcus Cannon and usual-right-tackle-playing-left-tackle Sebastian Vollmer is the answer for 2016. The main theory is to cut them both, sign a high-priced free agent to pair with Nate Solder and then they’ll be all set. Yet, I still have trouble seeing how any right tackle in league was going to shut down Von Miller in Denver, especially when not even Carolina could do it at a neutral site.
Because despite all the flaws of the 2015 Patriots that everyone loves to point out, they should’ve been headed to overtime in AFC Championship. Were they a flawed team? Well after all the injuries, sure, but despite that the season still came down to what it always comes down to–making the last play.
If Malcolm Butler doesn’t make the SB49 game-winning interception what would everyone be complaining about last offseason? That not even Revis and Browner could save the Patriots’ terrible defense that blew three Super Bowls for Tom Brady. They had no pass rush. They needed a deep threat.
The unsexy truth is that if you want to point the finger at where the 2015 Pats hurt themselves the most you have nowhere to look but two flukey plays in Denver. You never know when one play is going to change the course of your season, but that’s what happened with Harper’s Muff and Gostkowski’s extra point miss.
The first very well cost the Pats the chance to host the AFC Championship. The second cost them an overtime shot at the Super Bowl. Yes, this is oversimplifying it, and I can’t kill an undrafted rookie (who shouldn’t have been trying to field the punt) messing up on the road in the snow, or a kicker who hadn’t missed an extra point since his rookie year, but it’s hard to argue the Pats season wouldn’t have ended on different terms had those two plays gone the other way. And yes, the irony of the Pats being the ones who suggested moving the extra point back drips thick.
But there’s no way to hem and haw about two random plays over the course of a season and that’s football. That’s why it’s so hard not only to win, but to make the key plays in the key moments. The Patriots Super Bowl runs all featured the Pats making those clutch plays. Even the years they came up short they made plenty of those plays as well — they just didn’t make the last ones.
So everyone can worry about the offensive line, about the lack of weapons, about the lack of a pass rusher like Von Miller, but none of it really matters. The truth is that no matter who comes or goes this offseason the Patriots will once again win a ton of games next season. Winning the Super Bowl takes your three best games with plenty of clutch plays and a little luck sprinkled in. The 2016 Pats will just come down to whether or not they make the last play, but they’ll be in thick of it and go down swinging. That’s all we can ask for, even if we “only” have one Super Bowl in the last 11 years..
