Pretty solid couple days for the Patriots. I'm going to miss Chandler Jones but the overall net from the past few days has been:

In:
Jonathan Cooper
Chris Long
Martellus Bennett
60th pick
185th pick

Out:
Chandler Jones
127th pick

At the cost of only a couple million dollars in cap space.

I had a weird feeling about this game, ever since Super Bowl 42 I've hated going into big playoff games as favorites. Although I said the same thing before the Colts game last year, so I'm not exactly a psychic either. Gostkowski picked a very unfortunate time to miss his first XP in more than 500 attempts, but there's no use in scapegoating him as that game was lost by our offensive line. Them allowing 20 QBs hits and failing to open any holes for the run game is the reason we lost, not an extra point in the first quarter.

@PSP107: That's true but I don't have anything negative to say about LA in this case, in fact I've defended them several times whenever that false "couldn't support a team" narrative comes up, as them moving had far more to do with stadium politics and ownership rather than fan support. Regardless though, St Louis fans have had provided solid support for the Rams for over 20 years and unlike LA, there's very little chance that they're ever getting another team.

Sounds like the Rams are officially in LA with the Chargers likely to join them in 2017. Truthfully, while I am glad it's over, and have defended LA against the retarded "but they couldn't support teams before" nonsense, I still really dislike a lot about this. The Rams for one are leaving a publicly funded, 20-year-old stadium and also almost received another ridiculous sum of taxpayer money on their way out of St Louis. Beyond that despite poor attendance, I really don't think Rams fans were any better or worse than the average fanbase given the fact that the team was out of the playoffs for 11 straight seasons before leaving. I feel bad for Charger fans as well, but honestly losing your team to a city 2 hours up the road just isn't as sympathetic to me as losing your team to a city halfway across the country. However, I'm really not sure if LA actually needs a second team, particularly when the Rams will have by far the larger built-in fanbase upon arrival judging by a report I saw that suggested only 6% of LA NFL fans picked the Chargers as the team that they'd most like to see move (compared to 60% Rams and 34% Raiders). Granted none of that will matter anyway because at the end of the day, no matter how much money San Diego and/or the NFL offers them to stay, moving to LA would increase the team's immediate value by hundreds of millions of dollars.

@LostProphetFLCL: They would have gotten in to the playoffs at 9-7 had they lost to the Lions. Also, while the call at the end of the Lions game was bad, if they lost because some idiot who didn't know the rules swatted the ball out of the endzone, that game would be used as an example as to why they really should be at least 10-6.

Patriots just look like they're out of gas, it was one of my fears when I saw we had a week 4 bye but today was just really concerning. Injuries, especially on the o-line, probably had something to do with it but the defense looked bad for the second straight week, especially on 3rd down. Hard to be hopeful going into the playoffs, but maybe a bye week is what we need.

Belichick is claiming it was his call to defer in OT but i'm not convinced he isn't just attempting to deflect blame. Slater was obviously confused when he realized that the Jets were going to receive the kickoff, and unlike what I believe is the only other time a team has deferred in OT (Patriots vs. Broncos in 2013) the wind was barely a factor today. It would also make sense seeing as Slater is used to deferring as Belichick always defers when he wins the opening coin toss.

I'm just relieved that the Giants won't be in the playoffs. for a lot of the season things were playing out eerily similar to 2007 and 2011.

@PSP107: This game at least looked vaguely promising, it was actually originally supposed to be a 1PM before they switched it with Baltimore/Seattle. Dallas is completely hapless and yet has played 10 out of their 13 games in primetime or as the national matchup in the 4PM time slot, with 1 more left.

With the Raiders and Bengals losses the #1 has basically been gift-wrapped for us. I''m gonna be real pissed if we manage to screw this one up.