We all know which teams are the hardest to kill in each of the major North American professional sports.
The Kansas City Royals earn that distinction in baseball. The San Antonio Spurs are that team in basketball. The Chicago Blackhawks refuse to die in hockey.
The New England Patriots are the eternally young masters of the NFL. They offered that reminder to the nation and the Kansas City Chiefs on Saturday in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
New England authoritatively excused Kansas City from the playoffs, taking at 15-point third-quarter lead and finishing off the Chiefs without much drama in Gillette Stadium, 27-20. The victory sends the Patriots to the AFC Championship Game for the fifth straight season. Only one other NFL team in the split-conference era (since 1970) has reached five straight conference title games, the 1973-1977 Oakland Raiders.
As a point of comparison, the Silver and Black won one Super Bowl in that stretch and made the big game only once. The Patriots, should they win on Sunday, January 24, will have made three Super Bowls in the past five seasons. If New England beats the Pittsburgh-Denver winner, it would then have a chance to win back-to-back titles for the second time in franchise history (Super Bowls XXXVIII and XXXIX, in 2004 and 2005).
The biggest play of this game was a fumble by Kansas City running back Knile Davis early in the third quarter, with New England leading, 14-6. The Chiefs were taking advantage of injuries to the Patriots at linebacker. Jamie Collins and Jerod Mayo both got hurt in this game, and at the start of the third quarter, the Chiefs were continuing to lean on New England’s front seven.
Kansas City went 7 for 11 on third downs in the first half. The Chiefs moved the ball on Saturday — they weren’t powerless. Davis’s fumble, however, was the kind of mistake they couldn’t afford to make, and when New England scored just moments later for a 21-6 advantage, the Patriots showed once again why they are the NFL’s gold standard. They punish errors with a regularity no other NFL team has matched over the past five years. They are the team — more than any other in the league — which will not be beaten by merely ordinary performances from their opponents.
Kansas City needed to be special in order to pull the upset many pundits viewed as a legitimate possibility. The Chiefs might have converted a lot of third downs, but those conversions translated into only two touchdowns, both scored in the face of a two-touchdown deficit. Whenever the Chiefs had the ball in a one-possession game, they failed to dent the end zone. New England’s defense did not give up huge plays when this game’s outcome was in question. The Patriots might be what they are because of Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, and Julian Edelman, but their defense very much answered the call in this divisional playoff triumph.
As for Brady, Gronk and Edelman, however: They were pretty good, too.
It’s true that Edelman — coming back from a prolonged injury-related absence — dropped a few passes in the first half on Saturday. It’s true that Brady slightly underthrew receivers on a few occasions as well. Yet, while the Chiefs made major mistakes, the Patriots made minor ones. They reveal imperfections just like any other team, but they limit their flaws in terms of number and severity. When they fail on one play, they get it right the next.
This was never more the case on their opening drive of the evening, a touchdown march which set the tone for the game and forced Kansas City’s slow-crawling offense to play the entirety of this game while trailing on the scoreboard.
On New England’s first drive, Brady converted a third and seven, a third and nine, and a third and 13. He found Edelman early in the drive, and he found Gronk to gain a 7-0 lead. None of these players — the pitcher or the catchers — were flawless on Saturday, but they answered important situations with unerring consistency. The Chiefs collected lots of first downs in the first half and kicked two field goals. The Patriots did the same (6 of 8 on third downs before the intermission) and scored two touchdowns.
One team’s going home, the other team has another AFC title game to play, thank you very much.
This, in a nutshell, is what separated the Patriots from the Chiefs. It’s what has separated the Patriots from the rest of the NFL over the longer run of of time.
In many ways, this matchup illustrated the difference between good and great, between a team that’s almost there and a team which is spending a fifth straight season one win from the Super Bowl.
Kansas City is well-coached by Andy Reid. A lot of other NFL teams would do well under Reid’s guidance, including the Philadelphia Eagles. However, Reid (in addition to mangling yet more game-management situations, his towering, conspicuous flaw) seeks balance with the Chiefs’ offense. He wants the running game and the passing game to set up the other. In this game, he threw screen passes wide to set up the running attack on counters.
With Bill Belichick and the Patriots, there’s no effort to try to balance the numbers of runs and passes. Whatever works is what’s called for. This approach worked again on Saturday.
New England ran the ball just seven times in the first half. Brady was throwing the ball on a regular basis. Most coaches would not accept or allow for only seven runs in a half, but Belichick will do that if he feels it’s warranted. Brady wasn’t spectacular in this game, but 27 points were more than enough against Kansas City’s mile-a-millennium offense.
In the end, New England could move the ball in bigger chunks than Kansas City could. Moreover, when Kansas City started a possession at the Patriots’ 36 midway through the first half, trailing 7-3, the Chiefs started with a wide screen pass… for a loss of two yards.
They punted.
They never again had a chance to take the lead on a subsequent offensive possession.
Bill Belichick and Tom Brady don’t do what the rest of the copycat-inclined NFL does. Is it any wonder they’re the most successful franchise in the NFL today?
With one more win a week from now, the New England Patriots will play for a fifth Super Bowl title.
