They had a 20-10 lead in the 4th quarter. Whatever the discrepancy was in penalties, they were in absolute prime position to win the game. It's simple why all of these teams lose to the Patriots despite arguably outplaying them and/or winning the turnover battle. They get fewer "scoring possessions." That is, they purposefully use possessions to "run out the clock" or "play it safe" rather than just trying to move the ball and score points.
On every possession, the Patriots tried to score a touchdown.
Jacksonville did the following:
- After their delay of game penalty before the half, they could have still had a first down, but went with a safe play, thinking it would be safer to punt.
- After receiving the ball at the end of the first half with two timeouts left, they knelt on it, being "satisfied" with a 14-10 lead.
- In the fourth quarter, their play calling became very unaggressive, as they tried to run the ball or take safe completions short of the first down marker. In particular, the third down before the Patriots game winning TD drive, was a pretty pitiful attempt at a first down. The Patriots wanted them to throw short of the marker, and McCourty made an easy tackle.
There is a really bad idea in the NFL that has gone on for years, and it consists of this: control the clock and time of possession, keep the ball out of Brady's hands, and when you have the lead, kill as much clock as you can. What it really does is limits your playbook and your team no longer tries to exploit the Patriots weaknesses. At the end of the game, you realize that there was always going to be plenty of clock left, and the Patriots used their possessions wisely, whereas you wasted some. The Falcons had a good strategy in SB51, but it just didn't work. They kept their foot on the pedal, which is exactly what they should have done. It was just poor execution. The simple point is that when you play Brady, he is going to score his points, and you need to score yours, or you will lose. It's as simple as the scoreboard.
