I think he values HFA a ton, or else he wouldn't have used Brady/Gronk.
The main issue were the injuries down the stretch, as well as miscues and blown opportunities in the DEN/PHI games. As if that wasn't bad enough, they just couldn't put together enough of an effort in the last 2 weeks under the injury scenario that we saw. Edelman/Amendola just couldn't go. Unfortunately, neither the running game nor the defense was strong enough to win just ONE game vs. opponents that we should've beaten, especially Miami.
All of that combined (plus some bad calls at DEN in Nov.) are why we lost HFA, but even so---we've got to accept the fact that DEN played very well and that it may not have been written in stone that we'd have moved on no matter what. Obviously, the odds would've increased dramatically, and we probably could've gotten another FG out of it at home, but today's loss was much more about poor play on the OL, the lack of a running game, Gost's first missed XP in 10 years, and "role players" like LaFell, Amendola, Martin, Chandler, and White not stepping up enough like we saw in last year's playoff run.
Keep in mind that our defense has given up 20+ in 8/10 past postseason games at Gillette, too.