Patriots overcome 10-point deficit
Playing with a cut on his throwing hand that spilled blood on the practice field at midweek? No problem. Facing the fearsome defense of the Jacksonville Jaguars? No matter. Trailing by 10 points in the fourth quarter, without Rob Gronkowski and needing to overcome the biggame curse of Tom Coughlin? No big deal.
Tom Brady and the New England Patriots put all of that aside Sunday and added to the lore of the NFL’s greatest recent dynasty. Brady threw two fourth-quarter touchdown passes as the Patriots came back to beat the Jaguars, 24-20, in a competitive AFC championship game at Gillette Stadium and advanced to their eighth Super Bowl with Brady as their quarterback and Bill Belichick as their coach.
“We’ve got a lot of great players,” said Belichick during the on-field postgame trophy presentation. “We’ve got a lot of guys that fight, that never give up.”
They will seek a sixth Super Bowl triumph orchestrated by Brady and Belichick in two weeks in Minneapolis, facing the Philadelphia Eagles, winners of the NFC championship game.
The Patriots trailed, 14-3, in the first half Sunday after a touchdown pass by Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles and a touchdown run by Jacksonville’s powerful rookie running back, Leonard Fournette. Brady seemed less bothered by his hand injury than by the Jaguars, who ranked second in the league this season in total defense. New England pulled to within 14-10 by halftime, but by then had lost Gronkowski, the tight end who is a matchup nightmare to most defenses, because of a concussion suffered on an illegal hit.
The Patriots faced a 20-10 deficit in the fourth quarter. But Brady threw a nine-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Danny Amendola with just under nine minutes remaining.
He teamed with Amendola for a four-yard touchdown with 2:48 left. The Patriots held on from there, getting a breakup by cornerback Stephon Gilmore of a fourthdown pass by Bortles and then
running out the clock on offense.
This time, even the presence of Coughlin was not enough to derail the Patriots. Coughlin beat the Patriots in two Super Bowls as coach of the New York Giants. He rebuilt this Jaguars team as the franchise’s front office football czar and spent Sunday in the press box, muttering under his breath and occasionally pounding a fist on the table in front of him. The Jaguars lost for the third time in three appearances in AFC championship games, with the previous two defeats coming when Coughlin was their coach in the late 1990s.
The Patriots are off to another Super Bowl amid recent reports of internal strife and speculation that this is the final go-round with Brady, Belichick and owner Robert Kraft together. The winning nevertheless continues, and Sunday’s victory came on the 24th anniversary of Kraft purchasing the team.
“This is what I dreamt about as a fan in the stands, just like all of you,” Kraft said during the postgame ceremony. “And now we have to go to Minnesota and finish the job.”
Brady played without a glove on his injured throwing hand, but did have it wrapped and bandaged with black tape. He had been listed as questionable on the Patriots’ official injury report after his hand was hurt during Wednesday’s practice, reportedly in a collision with running back Rex Burkhead.
Brady told Westwood One before the game that it was “a very fluke injury.” ESPN reported Sunday that more than 10 stitches were required to close a cut on the inside of Brady’s right hand near his thumb. Previous reports had indicated that Brady received four stitches.
“I said, ‘We’ll see,’ ” Brady said, in reference to the injury, during the postgame celebration. “I think [it went] pretty well. It went pretty good. Coach Belichick doesn’t like us talking much about injuries. But just for all of you, it was just a pretty good cut. I dealt with it the best I could.”
Brady was shown arriving at the stadium Sunday with his right hand tucked inside his pocket. He’d worn gloves on both of his hands when he addressed reporters Friday. Brady was said to have thrown the ball well on the practice field Friday, easing the Patriots’ concerns.
“Sometimes freak accidents happen and thank goodness it wasn’t as severe as we thought it could be,” Kraft said during his NFL Network appearance earlier Sunday.
The Patriots were making their seventh straight appearance in the AFC championship game, and things began smoothly. Brady completed all six of his passes for 57 yards on the game’s opening drive. The Patriots made good on a fourth-and-one gamble from the Jacksonville 30-yard line but ended up having to settle for a field goal.
The Jaguars took control of the game, on both sides of the football, from there, and remained in charge for most of the first half. Bortles made a couple of slightly inaccurate throws as Jacksonville’s first drive of the day stalled and the Jaguars punted. But he settled down from there.
Bortles’ four-yard touchdown pass to tight end Marcedes Lewis in the opening minute of the second quarter gave the Jaguars the lead. They stretched the advantage to 14-3 midway through the quarter when Fournette bulldozed into the end zone from four yards out.
The Patriots pulled to within 14-10 before halftime, soon after Gronkowski exited following a helmet-to-helmet hit by Jaguars safety Barry Church. The illegal hit drew a penalty, and Church risked an unsportsmanlike conduct call for stepping over Gronkowski and then reacting angrily to the flag. But he was not penalized a second time. A subsequent pass interference call on the Jaguars set up James White’s one-yard touchdown run for the Patriots.
A 54-yard field goal by Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo made it a 17-10 game in the third quarter. The Patriots failed to capitalize on some good field position in the quarter, and Lambo’s 43-yarder in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter pushed the lead to 10 points. The Jacksonville defense made a big play when linebacker Myles Jack took the football away from Patriots running back Dion Lewis at the end of a significant gain on a trick play.