FOXBOROUGH — The critical blocked field goal that might have changed the outcome of the Patriots’ 23-20 overtime loss to the Seahawks will go on Joey Slye’s statistics. But the New England kicker didn’t have much of a chance on his 48-yard attempt.
Before the play, Seattle safety Julian Love switched sides with teammate Rashawn Jenkins and came around the left side of the Patriots line. He was behind the New England linemen and barely had to leap to get his left hand on the ball.
“That’s the field goal rush at that time without getting into the strategy involved, but he made a heck of a play,” Seahawks coach Mike McDonald said. “Just heck of a play, but it’s something you practice all the time, and finally when you have the opportunity, it goes and executes it. That was big-time.”
If the Patriots made the field goal, they’d have been ahead by 6 points with just under four minutes left. On the Seahawks’ final drive, they’d have needed a touchdown to win instead of a field goal to tie. That wouldn’t necessarily have changed the result, but it would have made things harder for Seattle and changed the complexion of the final drive.
Slye said the Patriots would look at where the play broke down and fix it quickly with another game just four days away.
“The ball got tipped. We’ll look at the film and see what happened,” Slye said. “As a team, we understand that every play matters significantly, especially in the two games we’ve been in, which have been pretty tight games. … We’ll look back at the film, and correct it to get ready for New York.”
The Patriots are at the Jets on Thursday.
Slye said the kick wouldn’t linger with him.
“You have to just flush it and get onto the next one. That’s what we do for our process,” he said. “Nothing is going to change We just have to get better at what we do.”
The problems for the Patriots started the play before when Jacoby Brissett took a 9-yard sack on third down, turning a 39-yard-field goal, into a much-harder 48-yarder.
“It was just a bad play by me. I was trying to get the ball out and I just didn’t want to be careless with the ball and somebody strip sack me from behind because I felt somebody coming from behind,” Brissett said. “Yeah. So was trying to get the ball out. It was just a bad play by me.”
