Pats’ foe again fails to make key plays

FOXBORO — Winners make plays when it counts most. Losers make mistakes.

Winners know who they are and then prove it when challenged. Losers forget.

Winners do it. Losers talk about what they’re going to do.

Yesterday, the winners, once again, were the New England Patriots. The losers this time were the chirpy Jacksonville Jaguars, a team that had more than enough chances to win the AFC Championship but found instead the ways to lose it and so, for the third time in the past four years and the eighth time since the dawning of the Age of Tom Brady, the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl and another frustrated and frazzled opponent returns home wondering: “How the hell did that happen?’’

It happened to the Jaguars the same way it happened so many other times to the Colts, the Steelers, the Ravens and the Chargers. It happened because they didn’t make the plays that had to be made when they had to make them and the team that always seems to make them made them again and again until they were packing to go back to the Super Bowl again.

“You’ve got to play a damn near perfect game against them,’’ lamented Jaguars safety Jarrod Wilson. “They made the plays when it counted. We didn’t.’’

The Jaguars led for nearly the entire game, up by 11 in the first half, 10 in the third quarter and three with less than three minutes to play but by then they’d already conspired against themselves enough that when all was said and done, so were they.

They lost, 24-20, not simply because Tom Brady led two fourth-quarter touchdown drives, although that was part of it, of course.

They lost, 24-20, not simply because Danny Amendola caught two touchdown passes and converted a third-and-18 with a remarkable route against the best pass defense in pro football, although that was part of it, too.

No, the real reason they lost was because for every play Amendola and the rest of the Patriots made, there was one the Jags did not ... as there always is for teams who come to Foxboro in hope of winning a playoff game.

Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have gone 19-3 in home playoff games and 6-1 in home AFC Championship Games. They’ve won those games in many ways but most often by the way they did it yesterday. By not making the kind of mistakes which, when added up, beat you.

How, for example, can a team come out of a timeout and be flagged for delay of game on a third-and-7 situation that negated a 12-yard completion that would have allowed the Jags to keep the ball with 2:33 to play in the first half holding a 14-3 lead?

“Yeah, I just thought out of the timeout we lost track (of the play clock),’’ Jacksonville head coach Doug Marrone said sheepishly. Lost track? Your team didn’t lose track. It lost the game. Or at least began that process.

On the next play they got both sacked and flagged for holding. Then, after pinning the Patriots at their own 15 with 2:02 left, his defense committed 47 yards worth of penalties on what became a 85-yard touchdown “drive’’ that cut the lead to 14-10.

“You know how it is in this league,’’ Jacksonville tight end Marcedes Lewis said. “The margin for error is small. We had our opportunities and we didn’t make them. They executed better when they had to than we did.’’

Yes they did. The Patriots executed their plays. The Jaguars executed themselves.

The Jags were better by far on third down, dominated