The officials all but swallowed and digested their whistles on Sunday in the AFC and NFC Championship games, calling just thirteen penalties between the conference showdowns combined.

It was a rare breath of fresh air and football fans everywhere truly appreciated how it not only improved the pace of the game considerably, but also allowed players to go out there and make plays.

Just kidding, everyone was miserable because the wrong teams won and no one even likes watching football anymore. Facts and truths, even in our sports, have finally ceased to matter – replaced by conspiracy theories spurred on by frustrated fans with victim complexes.

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There are thousands bemoaning the fact that the Jacksonville Jaguars were penalized significantly more than the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium, yet examples of instances in which the home team should have been penalized are suspiciously absent from their complaints. Meanwhile, the idea that the younger, more emotional, less-experienced team might go up against the most formidable dynasty in NFL history and make a few understandable mistakes has become unthinkable.

The basic principles of the sport have been abandoned, replaced with the illogical ramblings of a traumatized group of fans who cannot comprehend how this keeps happening and are grasping desperately at straws. That’s why it’s important to take a deep breath and be honest with ourselves about what we know about football, the NFL, and the two teams that faced off for AFC supremacy on Sunday afternoon.

One thing that we know for sure about young, fast, aggressive teams with little-to-no previous playoff experience is that they tend to let the game get away from them down the stretch. No one should be arguing that. Even well-coached, relatively disciplined young teams like the Jaguars are bound to have a hard time matching up strategically in a close game against a team that’s won two Super Bowls in the last three years.

So why are people so surprised that the Jaguars’ most aggressive defensive players were exploited by the most experienced playoff quarterback and coach in the history of team sports? Football fans have given so much power to the referees that they’ve stopped paying attention to the nuances of the game itself.

The Jaguars played an incredibly clean four quarters, all things considered. Their biggest problem was that the Patriots did too – and they predictably outlasted them.

When the Jaguars arrived at Gillette Stadium as prepared as they were, and executed as efficiently as they did, the game inevitably took on a mental component. That mental edge started to reveal itself when the Patriots scored a touchdown just before halftime to cut the Jaguars’ lead to four points. Before the second half had begun, most NFL fans could’ve bet their lives on the fact that the Patriots would make significant adjustments when the game resumed.

Even though they were losing by 10 points heading into the fourth quarter, the Patriots were armed with a superior offense and faced an increasingly gassed Jacksonville defense — and it quickly became clear that while the Jaguars had been playing balls-to-the-wall checkers, they’d been playing chess. Classic Patriots.

Remember, Bill Belichick is the same man who entered Super Bowl LI armed with more than the usual number of two-point plays ready to go, just in case. He’s smarter than every coach on any given field at any given moment – but more importantly, he’s patient.

Belichick was perfectly happy to let the Jaguars take their shots early in the game for the same reason that the Patriots are an entirely different defense in the red zone than they are between the 20s. When he faces a legitimate opponent who has the means to win, he waits for them to show their hand, and then he exploits it.

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On Sunday, the Jaguars’ hand featured two aces. The first was their highly effective strategy of aggressive, hard-hitting, man-to-man coverage against the Patriots receivers, and their second was their ability to diversify an otherwise limited offensive game plan by forcing the defense to deal with Leonard Fournette. The running back’s early success opened up the passing lanes for Blake Bortles, who was hitting his receivers regularly because the Patriots were playing their bend-but-don’t-break zone coverage.

First the Patriots defensive line figured out how to contain Fournette, which not only freed up the defensive backs to be more assertive in their coverage, but it also put the Jaguars offense on edge for the first time all game. Early in the second quarter, that discomfort resulted in the first penalty of the game – a false start by Cam Robinson for five yards.

On their next possession, Fournette was called for an illegal shift, costing the Jags another five yards, and just a few plays later they earned the now infamous delay of game penalty. That was followed immediately by a Robinson hold which was declined, and the Jaguars found themselves punting the ball back to Danny Amendola with 2:09 left in the half.

Already you could hear the death knell sounding, as the Jaguars inexcusably left Brady with plenty of time to drive the length of the field and score a much needed touchdown before the half. With 0:55 left in the game and the ball back in their quarterbacks hands, the Jaguars decided to take a couple of knees and head to the locker room. They’d started to lose faith, even with a four-point lead.

All of the aforementioned penalties were legitimate. There were no arguments about that during the game, nor has anyone protested any of those calls since.

Here are the slightly more controversial second-half penalties the Jaguars incurred:

Penalty on Barry Church for unnecessary roughness (15 yards)

Penalty on A.J. Bouye for defensive pass interference (32 yards)

Penalty on Jalen Ramsey for defensive pass interference (36 yards)

Of those penalties, the only one that’s even worth a second look is the Bouye DPI on Brandin Cooks – a result of the Jaguars cornerback running Cooks out of bounds.

In his analysis, former Senior VP of Officiating Dean Blandino asserted that both championship games were called well and that officiating didn’t effect either outcome. In referencing the Bouye DPI, he clarified that “if the defender is not playing the ball and he makes contact that affects the receiver’s ability to make a play, then it’s a foul. It was close, there was a lot of contact, the official threw the flag.”

In the end, the Patriots – and specifically Tom Brady – saw opportunities to bait the Jaguars defensive backs into pass interference, and that’s exactly what they did. As athletic and smart as all three of those players are, none of those penalties were unfair. The officials chose to call the game a certain way and they were consistent throughout. Hell, the only accepted holding call all game was against the Patriots’ Marquis Flowers.

The Jaguars six penalties for 98 yards compared to the Patriots one penalty for 10 yards presents an unsettling disparity without context. With context, however, you realize that nearly ninety percent of their penalty yards came from three calls – two of which were inarguable and the third of which is easy to defend from the officials’ perspective.

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Since 2000, there have been 14 playoff games in which a team has had one or zero penalties called against them – 13 of which were between 2000 and 2011. It’s not unprecedented, it just hasn’t happened in a while.

Back in 2011, it happened three times. The Patriots were penalized only once against the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens were penalized zero times against the Houston Texans and the New Orleans Saints were penalized zero times against the 49ers.

Since then, the Patriots have played in 14 playoff games – and Sunday’s AFC Championship game was the only one of them in which they were penalized just once. In seven of those games during that span, they were penalized equally or as many times as their opponent.

In the NFC Championship game between the Vikings and the Eagles, only six total penalties were called. So between the two games on Sunday, there were just thirteen total penalties. The Carolina Panthers were penalized nearly that much (12 penalties for 102 yards) in their Super Bowl 50 loss to the Denver Broncos. The defensively aggressive Broncos were penalized exactly half that much: six times for 51 yards.

Should that call into question the legitimacy of the Broncos’ Super Bowl win?

The Patriots played like the Patriots and the Jaguars played like the Jaguars. There were no surprises, unless you count just how good Blake Bortles was for most of the game. The Jaguars played brilliantly, but the few mistakes they made ended up costing them. That’s the story of just about every team that’s ever run up on the Patriots at Gillette Stadium in the postseason.

They don’t need help from the officials to punish teams for making mistakes, and if you think that they do, I can’t imagine what the last 17 years of watching the NFL have been like for you.

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