Patriots Win AFC Championship; Will Play In Super Bowl LII

FOXBOROUGH, MA — The script was a bit different, but the ending was predictable and expected by Patriots fans, with DJ Khaled's "All I Do Is Win" and Daft Punk's "One More Time" playing over the Gillette Stadium sound system and Patriots players in free t-shirts and hats.

The New England Patriots are going back to the Super Bowl after wiping out a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter and earning a 24-20 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Patriots will play in Super Bowl LII in two weeks. They will the Philadelphia Eagles, the winners of the NFL Championship by virtue of a 38-7 win over the Minnesota Vikings. The Super Bowl will be played at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis Feb. 4 at 6:30 p.m. and will air on NBC.

"This was a great football game. Really, as I said out there, really proud of our players, did a great job. We didn’t really do things as well as we'd like to have done them at times in the game, but they battled. They kept competing. In the end, we made enough plays in all three phases of the game. A lot of guys stepped up and that’s a good football team. Coach [Doug] Marrone, his staff, Jacksonville – that’s a really good team. But I couldn’t be prouder of the way our guys played, competed, fought and in the end executed, made the plays that we had to make to win. We're happy to be moving on," Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said.

Danny Amendola was the hero for the Patriots during the fourth quarter. It started on third and 18 on the New England 25-yard line with 10:48 left in the game when Tom Brady found Amendola for 21 yards. That was followed up by a flea flicker to Phillip Dorsett for another 31 yards. After that, it was all Amendola on a 14-yard pass down to the nine and then the touchdown to cut the lead from 10 to three.

"I think I had a little bit of an option route in the middle of the field and I saw that there was room. I had pointed out the line [to gain] before the play snap so I knew where to get to and Tom [Brady] had a laser and it was perfect. The two touchdowns: the first one, the go-ahead touchdown. It’ s a play we’ve worked on—I scored on it a couple of times this year, I think, actually. I have a crosser in the back of the end zone and Tom reads the first whip route on the left to ‘Cookie’ [Brandon Cooks] and then if he doesn’t have it then his eyes come to me in the back. We had it and it was a zone coverage. I obviously didn’t see what happened to Cookie on the first read and then Tommy had a great ball. I knew it was coming right by that ‘backer or safety in the back. It was a great throw," Amendola said.

The game-winning drive was kickstarted by a 20-yard punt return to the Jacksonville 30-yard line by Amendola. A short time later, the wide receiver struck again on a second and goal at the four-yard line, catching a Tom Brady pass in the back of the end zone with less than two minutes to play.

"He’s made so many big catches, and I saw he got the one foot in and I just saw it up on the big screen one time. He’s got great hands and just a great sense about where he’s at on the field. So, I mean, he’s made so many big plays for us, and this was huge, and without that, we don’t win. It was an incredible play," Brady said.

The status of tight end Robert Gronkowski remains in the air. Gronkowski left late in the second quarter with a head injury following a helmet to helmet hit and did not return.

The win, which came on the 24th anniversary of the sale of the team to Robert Kraft, gave New England their 10th AFC Championship and the ninth of Kraft's ownership.

Image Credit: AP Photo/David J. Phillip