Thank You, Patriots!

What a season that was.

I know that the Patriots just lost the Super Bowl, and I’m supposed to be disappointed. And of course I’m disappointed. It would have been amazing to win this game. 

But at the same time, I need to be honest with myself and keep in mind how incredible this season was. I legit can’t remember the last time I had more fun watching the New England Patriots, from start to finish, than this past year. This team blew all of my expectations completely out of the water—14 regular-season wins, the 2-seed in the AFC, an MVP candidate at quarterback, AFC East Champs, and a trip to the Super Bowl. It’s tough to be too upset right now. 

And amazingly, I’m already at peace with this loss.

The Patriots offense really struggled today against a generational defense. The Patriots defense played well for the most part, but the Seattle offense was efficient and made enough plays to win. The better team acted like the better team when it mattered most, and the team that deserved to win won it. There’s not much else to say beyond that.

And there’s no denying that Drake Maye hasn’t had a great postseason. No point in sugarcoating it; he has actually had a lousy postseason. Maye is going to go on to have a great career—I’m very confident in that—but this was a terrible playoff showing. He looked completely out of his element tonight, behind an offensive line that couldn’t stop anything. In a matchup of five New England offensive linemen against four Seattle defensive linemen, the D-line won every single time. That wasn’t the only thing that went wrong tonight—not by a long shot—but it certainly didn’t help. Hopefully, our young quarterback (all of 23 years old. I literally have a bottle of scotch in my basement older than him) learned some valuable lessons over the past few weeks, perhaps none more valuable than the ones he learned today. 

So that’s all she wrote. 

What a run. What a year. 

I’m already excited for this offseason. A young core, a ton of cap space, most of the team coming back next year, a strong head coach, and New England might once again be an attractive destination for incoming Free Agents.

Maybe the Patriots make it back here next year. Maybe they don’t. Maybe this was some weird anomaly of a season and they never even sniff a Super Bowl again. Maybe this was the first of many deep playoff runs for this team. Whatever the case may be, these last few months were an absolute blast, and it has been a joy to cover it all here on Pats Pulpit.

So once again, Thank You, Patriots! Hell of a season. 

And congratulations to the Seahawks! A very well-deserved win. Hopefully, this game takes some of the sting out of that Malcolm Butler pick.