Plenty of regrets for Patriots in their ‘game of inches’ loss

DENVER — Stephen Gostkowski kept pausing in the middle of his sentences, trying to just hold it together and not cry at his locker.

“I just feel terrible,” said Gostkowski, the normally automatic New England Patriots kicker whose missed extra point ended up being a huge difference in the Patriots’ 20-18 AFC championship game loss to the Denver Broncos. “These guys work a lot, all day, put their bodies and lives on the line and for us to come out here and lose by a point and me to miss that kick, it’s a nightmare scenario.”

Tom Brady spoke in a monotone with a polite smile, understanding that he and his team just missed a great opportunity, and nobody can ever be sure when those dry up.

“Well, I want to win it every year,” Brady said. “Hopefully I have more opportunities for that.”

This was a tough way for the Patriots’ season to end. There will be no Super Bowl repeat and Brady and Bill Belichick will not win a fifth ring together this season. The Patriots spoke often in the locker room about a play here and a play there, and repeating the old cliche about it being a game of inches. Last year, Malcolm Butler made an unbelievable interception with the Seattle Seahawks a yard away from beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl. This year, the Patriots will go home thinking about the plays they didn’t make, like a pass that was tipped and intercepted with 12 seconds left when the Patriots were trying to tie the game with a two-point conversion.

Belichick made some decisions that can be questioned in hindsight too. Twice the Patriots got deep into Broncos territory. They went for it both times and converted neither. Those decisions — fourth-and-1 with 6:03 left, and fourth-and-6 with 2:25 left — made perfect sense in the moment.

“Score and situation in the game,” Belichick said when asked why he didn’t kick field goals in those spots. 

But if you look in hindsight, and put those two field goals on the board on those fourth downs, the Patriots would have been winning the game in the end on a Gostkowski field goal instead of losing it on a failed two-point conversion. Belichick was asked if he had any regrets. 

“No,” Belichick said. 

He might not, but the Patriots as a whole probably will.

The great Brady, arguably the best quarterback in NFL history, didn’t play well most of the game. He hit some plays late to keep his team in the game, and battled despite a Broncos pass rush that hit him on way too many of his 56 attempts. But this was far from a vintage Brady performance. His two interceptions loomed large all game. He couldn’t make a play on the final two-point conversion attempt. He finished with a 56.4 rating.

“We lost to a very good football team today,” Brady said. “I wish that two-point play would have been different. I’m sure everyone could look at different plays throughout the game when it’s that close and say, ‘Man, I wish I would have made that play.'”

It’s practically inconceivable that Gostkowski was the one at his locker at the end of the game talking about how he let his team down. He hadn’t missed an extra point since Dec. 31, 2006. He had hit 523 extra points in a row, including playoffs and including all 52 attempts this season after the NFL moved the extra point back to make it tougher. But he missed wide right after New England’s first touchdown, and that lost point was why the Patriots were going for two at the end. Gostkowski’s teammates supported him and said that kick wasn’t the reason they lost, but in the moment that didn’t help him feel better.

“It’s just kind of shock, and I feel I let a lot of people down,” Gostkowski said. “It’s just not a good feeling.”

Belichick has led the charge for the NFL to move the extra point back for years. The miss was a key reason he isn’t going to his seventh Super Bowl as head coach of the Patriots.

There were many close plays that the Patriots will look back on. The failed fourth-and-1 was hurried because of DeMarcus Ware’s pressure, which caused Brady to loft his pass just enough so cornerback Chris Harris — who wasn’t covering Julian Edelman — was able to tackle Edelman for a 1-yard loss. There were also two deep fourth-quarter passes that went off running back James White’s fingertips, for a couple more examples.

“We all could have played better, including myself,” White said. “It’s just a game of inches. We were just a couple inches short on a couple of them.”

Or maybe it was a call that didn’t go their way, like the fourth-and-6 that Brady heaved up to Rob Gronkowski that fell incomplete. When Gronkowski tried to jump for the ball, he said he couldn’t because he was being held. He argued with the officials but no flag was thrown.

“Was i held? I don’t know,” Gronkowski said. “I felt like Aqib [Talib] had me. He’ll probably text me later and be like, ‘I was holding you, bro.'”

In the big picture, it’s not like the Patriots have been the unluckiest team. Two of their Super Bowl wins came on walk-off field goals. Last year’s title came on Butler’s incredible interception. The Patriots also were on the right side of the “Tuck Rule” game way back when, and went to a Super Bowl when the Baltimore Ravens had a dropped touchdown by Lee Evans and a Billy Cundiff missed field goal in the last minute of an AFC championship game.

Then again, the Patriots have also lost two Super Bowls to the New York Giants in the final minute, one after David Tyree’s famous catch, and lost an opportunity to go to another Super Bowl on Sunday when … well, pick a turning point. And they were still just a two-point conversion away from sending the AFC championship game to overtime.

And there will be plenty of times in the next couple weeks that the Patriots will see the Broncos living it up at Super Bowl 50, and believe that with just a break or two it could be them. But when the margins are razor thin like they are in the NFL, everyone has “what if?” moments. Even the great Patriots dynasty.

“There were a lot of big plays in the game,” Belichick said. “Any one of them probably could have made a bit of a difference. I just think we all feel, as coaches, players, it’s such a fine line today between winning and losing that we all could have just done a little bit more and it might have been a different result, but it wasn’t. It’s a crash landing to end the season, like there usually is in the National Football League.”

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab