Tom Brady‘s season ended on a sour note Sunday when the Patriots dropped a 20-18 decision to Denver in the AFC title game. Now the 38-year-old will once again turn his focus to the Deflategate scandal that dominated headlines last offseason. As ESPN’s Mike Reiss writes, the NFL’s appeal regarding Judge Richard Berman’s Sept. 3 reversal of Brady’s four-game suspension will take place on March 3. If the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rules in favor of the league, Brady might have to sit out the early portion of the 2016 season.
More from the AFC, including a note on the conference champions:
- Broncos safety Darian Stewart suffered a sprained MCL on Sunday, reports Troy Renck of The Denver Post (Twitter link). Stewart says he’s fine, though. “Hell yeah I will be ready for the Super Bowl,” he told Renck.
- Despite signing a contract extension through 2017 this week, Jaguars head coach Gus Bradley is facing a make-or-break 2016 campaign, opines Gene Frenette of the Florida Times-Union. Jags players and prospective free agents are aware that Bradley is on the hot seat, according to Frenette, who believes the 49-year-old must win at least eight games next season in order to return in ’17. The Bradley-led Jags have gone 12-36 in three years. Despite only winning five games this season, a career best for Bradley, the team does finally appear to be trending upward.
- Before Bradley promoted ex-defensive line coach Todd Wash to D-coordinator this week, Wash had to sit in on interviews Bradley conducted with other candidates. That made Wash “uncomfortable,” he told reporters (link via Hays Carlyon of the Florida Times-Union). “In the back of your mind, it’s human nature, you want to be the defensive coordinator,” he added.
What a game. Did anyone notice that on a couple crucial plays at the end that there wasn’t any replays by CBS? The 4th down to Gronk downfield looked like the ball was coming loose and then on the TD they never showed a replay other than the one angle. I thought for sure on the catch they were going to show the replay. Conspiracy theories would have been running wild had the Pats won.
Man I hate the pats as much as the next guy but those fourth downs weren’t that close. The first one the ball simply never touched the ground and on the td gronk was 5 feet in front of the end of the endzone.
Yea, they were not close, gronk has possession, and the gronk TD was way a head of going out of bounds