AFC Championship Football

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady gets up after getting hit during the second half of the NFL football AFC Championship game between the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

(David Zalubowski)

It's no secret that offensive line play cost the New England Patriots a berth in Super Bowl 50 and a chance to repeat as world champs.

During a radio interview with WAAF in Boston, former Pats left tackle Matt Light provided some insight into why that was the case.

Light had lots to say on the subject, placing most of the blame on the Patriots' inability to effectively execute a silent snap count, which allowed Denver's edge players to get excellent jumps. He called it "an abomination."

"It was tough, tough for everybody to watch," Light told WAAF. "I haven't heard one person who didn't want to discuss what was the obvious -- the offensive line issues -- with me. And, you know, look, (Denver) is a horrible place to go play, especially in that circumstance, right? You've got the best defense in the league, you're in their place and you don't practice a snap count? It blows my mind that, really, the game was lost because of a snap count -- in my opinion."

Light was asked if this was a sign of overconfidence from Bill Belichick.

"No, I've never seen Bill overconfident. I mean, look, anything I've heard the whole time I played there -- even when we went 18-0 -- was, 'Hey, I know you guys won the game 45-0, but if we do this, this and this again, we're going to get killed.' It's like, really? Not an 'atta boy?'"

Light continued: "It's not overconfidence. It's amazing how quickly things are forgotten. You take a guy like Dante Scarnecchia, who never let off the pedal for an instant and always drilled into us that it's got to be better and we've got practice this. And, yeah, Dante, we get it. But (the 2015 team) didn't get it. I don't think the atmosphere in that offensive line room is the same without a guy like Dante. I don't think that they practiced their snap count at all, really, to any degree. We went into a game being able to snap silent count five different ways. Not two. Five. And in that game, I watched them on the snap count and I was blown away. You're handcuffing your tackles, and that's what happens when you don't effectively run a silent snap count. And it was terrible to watch."

"I'll take it another step," Light added. "The snap count, in my opinion, was an abomination. I mean, it was the worst thing you could do to that front five. But the fact that they didn't throw any three-steps and cut the legs out from the defenders early in that game is mind-boggling to me. That would have been the first thing that I fought for...Give me at least one three-step because I need to make this guy fear a little bit of his up the field pass rush by me taking his legs out from underneath him. Or, hey, let's bring Gronk from the outside and let's crack one of these defensive ends, like he did with (former Bills defensive end) Aaron Schobel and knocked him into another galaxy and literally spun his helmet off his head, and the guy literally didn't even want to take two steps upfield at that point. So, they didn't give (Denver) anything to think about. They didn't have to keep them honest in any way throughout that whole gameplan, and then the snap count obviously was terrible. It wasn't the talent on the field. They could have beat that team with a little bit more preparation and doing things a little better and it didn't happen."

Light added that he wasn't "trying to be disrespectful" with his comments.

"What the coaches do, what Josh McDaniels does, what all the guys do on that staff -- offense and defense -- is incredible," Light said. "That one slipped away, and I think they're probably having the same kind of conversations now looking back on the film and studying it. And they'll learn a lot from it like they do from anything, but from the fan perspective, which I am now, it was very difficult."

Listen to the full Matt Light interview here.