NFL Conference Championship Sunday: Blake Bortles' Date With Destiny

I'm getting entirely different results.

 

Not the point. You get within three TD-and-kick possessions there with the odds on converting that fourth down. That struck me as a packing-it-in, desperation move too, made too early.

 

Fly to Milwaukee and drive from there.

 

I’m not breaking any news here, but I just watched the fourth quarter again and, holy shit, Amendola. What a 12 minutes for that guy.

 

He's in that stupid adidas commercial too, but just has a cameo.

Is there anything more pretentious than Nike/adidas commercials, except for Gatorade commercials perhaps? Jesus, you make overpriced shoes, clothing, and sports pedialyte. You're not curing cancer.

 

That's for Alex Guerrero and TB12 to do.

 

As much as I'm tired of the Pats winning; they are so detail oriented and precise I have to laud them. Belichek saying its not brain-surgery, says so much about his perspective. I still root against them, but damn they don't beat themselves.

Foles >> Bortles.

 

Bortles played well yesterday, but there isn't a quarterback in the Hall of Fame who wouldn't have been happy to have had Foles' performance yesterday in any game of their careers.

 

It is amazing that Brady could throw 38 times on Sunday against one of the best pass rushes in the NFL and the Patriots did not have one holding call. Amazing.

 

I didn't see it anywhere on here, but CBS' AFC Championship Game tease may win an award.
Very well done.

 

The thing that sticks out to me, and all of the greatest teams in any sport seem able to do this, is how they're able to bend time to their will while opponents struggle to do it.
In Week 2 against the Saints, the Patriots were driving at the end of the half and had no timeouts. They ran a third down play that ended with, IIRC, 14 seconds left -- usually the minimum amount of time needed to run up and spike it, and not nearly enough to pull the offense off the field and get the field goal team on. The Patriots not only did the latter, they did it with time to spare. They snapped the ball with 3 seconds to go.
Yesterday, they were down 14-3 with 2 1/2 minutes to go in the first half. Jacksonville had a first down around the Pats' 40. The Patriots not only got the ball back with plenty of time to zip down the field and score, they got it back right at the two minute warning. It was like watching a magic trick, or a scene from The Matrix.
I remember the late 1990s Yankees teams being able to do this, between a combination of clutch hitting and Rivera shortening games to seven or eight innings. The early 2000s Lakers were really good at it, too. Phil Jackson was able to turn the last two minutes of a playoff game into another quarter. Now the Patriots can do it.
It's the most valuable weapon a great team can have, because no one -- not your team, not your opponents, not anyone in the stands -- ever feels like you're out of the game. There's always a path to victory, and everyone involved knows that and reacts accordingly. The Patriots keep grinding until there are no more opportunities. Opponents tighten up trying to hold on, which plays right into the Patriots' hands.
It's a rare and fascinating thing to watch.

 

Then it must have taken 65 seconds, because JVille got the ball back with 55 seconds, and elected to kneel.

I wonder if they rue that decision.