The New England Patriots’ dramatic win over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday nearly was derailed by a missed extra point.
With the Patriots trailing by one midway through third quarter, Stephen Gostkowski hooked his point-after attempt wide left following a Brandin Cooks touchdown.
New England went on to win 27-24 after surviving one of the wildest NFL finishes in recent memory, but head coach Bill Belichick was none too pleased with the field goal unit’s execution on that particular play.
“There are several things that could’ve been better on that play, obviously,” Belichick said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. “It’s the National Football League. We’ve got to be able to execute that play better than we did. Obviously, need to coach it better, need to execute it better. We’ve just got to do a better job on it.”
Gostkowski wasn’t the only one at fault on the missed kick. Joe Cardona’s snap was low, and holder Ryan Allen failed to spin the laces toward the uprights.
I give Gostkowski a pass on the PAT. Low snap, then laces sideways on the hold #LacesOut pic.twitter.com/QCeCIR0Twd
— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) December 18, 2017
It was Gostkowski’s fifth miss of the season (two extra points, three field goals). He misfired on eight kicks during the 2016 regular season (three extra points, five field goals) and missed two more extra point attempts in the playoffs, including one in Super Bowl LI.
“I think we’ve had a lot of really good plays (in the kicking game),” Belichick said. “That wasn’t one of them. Again, we’ve just got to do a better job of coaching it, preparing the players for that type of situation and being able to execute under not perfect conditions. But as I said, we’re in the National Football League. We’ve got to be able to execute that play.”
Despite the shanked PAT, Belichick was pleased with the Patriots’ kicking game as a whole, referencing the kickoff that preceded JuJu Smith-Schuster’s 69-yard catch-and-run in both his postgame news conference and his Monday conference call.
“I think we got some good field-position plays on it in the game, and every yard’s important in a game like that,” the coach said Monday. “It shows up sooner or later. We were competitive on special teams. Certainly, there were plays that could have been better, I’m not saying that. But overall, I thought we did a decent job.”
