Pats can't win every 3-point game

[40yrpatsfan]

This game is fairly easy to be philosophical about. There were no huge blown calls in the 4th qtr, no terrible misplays or giveaways. There is certainly the sadness of losing a game with such huge stakes. And I'm tempted to criticize the offensive game plan, but after everything BB has done for this team, I can't go there.

The fact is, we can't win every 3-point game. There's so much chance and luck involved that we're going to lose one every now and then. We competed, and took a late lead. We gave it our best shot.

The Giants last drive was divine intervention - it could have easily gone our way but for several amazing bounces of the ball. In similar circumstances in the past, the ball has bounced our way. It simply didn't last night. Nobody's a bigger diehard than me, but I'm OK with it. Hate the result, but can live with the way it happened. Very tough loss, but doesn't cross over into "bitter".

 

[60minuteman]

Very well said, imo.

I agree with you, and ultimately I will probably adopt this attitude fully. But for now I have to rule out many other causes before I can settle on fate or luck as the reason.

 

[40yrpatsfan]

I'm sure we made many avoidable mistakes, and there was questionable play calling on both sides of the ball. But I guess I'm just glad that if we had to lose such a huge game, that it wasn't full of bad calls or bad plays. That's what makes a loss truly unbearable.

The Giants won the game more than we lost it, very similar to SB 36 vs the Rams. I've always felt that we WON that game. It was very much the same type of game against the Giants. They seized it in the last minute - certainly with some good fortune thrown in. But you can't say we blew it, you really can't.

We've now experienced both sides of that dynamic, and that makes it less of a killer, to me anyway.

 

[ewg_gestalt]

I'm sure we made many avoidable mistakes, and there was questionable play calling on both sides of the ball. But I guess I'm just glad that if we had to lose such a huge game, that it wasn't full of bad calls or bad plays. That's what makes a loss truly unbearable.

The Giants won the game more than we lost it, very similar to SB 36 vs the Rams. I've always felt that we WON that game. It was very much the same type of game against the Giants. They seized it in the last minute - certainly with some good fortune thrown in. But you can't say we blew it, you really can't.

We've now experienced both sides of that dynamic, and that makes it less of a killer, to me anyway.

This is one of those cases where we can say "They didn't win" rather than "They lost." Neither team played an outstanding game (17-14?). The Giants just performed better than we did when it mattered. There are lots of little "what if's," but no single thing you can point to and say "this is why we lost."

This loss hurts, but it's barely a blip on the screen compared with the Red Sox in 2003, or even last year. There'll be all the wondering about what could have been with the 19-0, but I refuse to look on this season as a total failure. It was a heck of a ride, even if the ending was a downer.