New England Patriots: 5 observations from Week 15 win over Steelers

The New England Patriots all but secured the top seed in the AFC yesterday as they defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-24.

I honestly can’t believe what I witnessed yesterday. A New England Patriots win will never surprise me, but the way they won yesterday shocked me. What a game. What a game indeed.

I can put about 57 and a half minutes of the game into words, but everything in the remaining 2 minutes and 30 seconds rendered me speechless. I sunk into my chair and I was reading tweets from the future. They read “Tom Brady is done.” They read “The Patriots dynasty is over.” I was, to put it lightly, devastated.

Listen, the best teams lose. It happens. Even though we don’t look into the past here in New England, we’re all aware that the Patriots lost a game just 7 days ago.

But yesterday?

That would have been a painful one to lose.

I’m no literature buff, but I seem to recall a specific circle of Dante’s Inferno in which the heretics are trapped inside flaming tombs. To make matters worse for the sinners, yesterday’s New England Patriots game is playing on a loop inside of those tombs. At the end of the game, Ben Roethlisberger completes a TD pass as the clock expires and the Steelers clinch the top seed in the AFC. That, my friends, is hell.

Fortunately for those of us who have yet to enter the Inferno, the Patriots kept the Steelers out of the end zone and walked off Heinz Field as victors. It was emotionally taxing, but rewarding in the end. Best game of the season.

Welcome back to my weekly column where I put into words 5 observations I made during the game. It could be anything from a busted coverage to a man in the stands dressed as Santa with a discolored beard (did you guys see him? Disgusting!). In the words of Dewey Finn from School of Rock, “let’s get rockin’”!