A couple of quick notes on the end of the Patriots season in Denver.

The obvious point of the game is that the Pats did it to themselves. You can't turn the ball over five times to a team like Denver and expect to win. The Pats pretty much outplayed Denver in every other facet of the game, but the turnovers killed them.

On the bright side, maybe the play of the year was Benjamin Watson's tackle of Champ Bailey on the 1-yard-line. Bailey had intercepted a Tom Brady pass in the Pats' end zone and ran it back 100 yards. He looked like he was home free until Watson came out of nowhere and just leveled him. It was an amazing play - just the fact that Watson didn't quit and got Bailey before he got into the end zone was an example of a never say die attitude that a lot of New England fans will never forget.

Here's my rant of the day. As you probably know, the Indianapolis Colts were eliminated from the playoffs yesterday by the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Colts had a chance to tie the game with 21 seconds left, but kicker Mike Vanderjagt missed a 46 yard field goal and the Steelers went on to the AFC Championship game.

That's not what got me going, though. Read the following quote, from today's Boston Globe

Vanderjagt slammed his helmet to the turf. ''It's extreme disbelief," he said. ''From the Polamalu interception reversal to Jerome's fumble, everything seemed to be lined up in our favor. I guess the Lord forgot about the football team."

Now I have written about this before, but this quote just got me going again. Guess what, Mike? I find it very unlikely that the Lord had much of a rooting interest in the game. I find it highly offensive when athletes give God credit for a win or, in this case, blame Him for a loss. What reason would He have for picking one team over another? Why not be a man and say that you screwed up and missed the kick instead of trying to blame it on some higher power?

I didn't like the fact that Peyton Manning threw his offensive line under the bus either. You would never see Tom Brady do that, even if the line deserved the criticism.

I suppose these kind of attitudes are why Brady and Adam Vinatieri have three Super Bowl rings at home, and Manning and Vanderjagt have only seen the game on TV.