By now, the nation is well aware that the New England Patriots' pursuit of a perfect 2015 season is over, after the team fell to the Denver Broncos 30-24 on Sunday Night Football last night.

While there are a host of things to point at, as the game is dissected, here are a few key thoughts from the night's action:

Fumbled Punt- At the beginning of the fourth quarter, with a 14-point lead and total control of the game, the Patriot defense forced a three-and-out and a Broncos punt. Unfortunately for Patriot Nation, that's where things started to spiral out of control for New England. Undrafted rookie Chris Harper, who only played as a punt returner in the game, took his eye off of the ball and fumbled the punt which was recovered by Denver. That set the Broncos up deep in New England territory and got their offense going for the first time since their final drive of the first half.

Horrendous Officiating- While the muffed punt started the fallout, the biggest story of how this game ended in the Broncos' favor is that the referees that officiated this game were purely awful. The number of blown calls that could be dissected here is so high that it's impossible to cover them all. There was the offensive pass interference call on Rob Gronkowski on a first down catch as the Patriots were attempting to run out the clock. That call CAN'T be made, simply because of the timing and the lack of a clear cut push off. It's clear that the NFL is targeting Gronkowski and it's getting to be absolutely ridiculous. Now for the abomination that was the defensive pass interference call against Patrick Chung in the end zone that set up Denver's final score. That call is a crime against all that is right in this world. How can the refs make that call? Brock Osweiler couldn't even get a pass off on the play because defensive lineman Alan Branch trampled the Denver center and was in his face, collapsing on him, within two seconds of the snap. Not to mention the "grab" of the jersey was weak. Add those atrocious calls in with a couple more bum calls against the Pats and a handful of "missed" calls that should have gone against the Broncos, including a play in which a Denver defender launched himself into the head of Tom Brady, and one can easily see why the game ended the way it did.

Playing With Guts- Though they came out on the short end of the score, the Patriots showed a tremendous amount of grit and moxie to battle on night long. Take this in for a second; the Patriots played the entire game without three of their top four offensive weapons (Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, Dion Lewis) and down the stretch, on their game-tying field goal drive at the end of regulation, they were without the fourth of their big four (Rob Gronkowski). On defense, they again had no Jamie Collins, who is their best defender, all night and were without Dont'a Hightower, arguably their second best defender, for the whole second half. That's a lot of key players they were working without, so to say it took an absolutely disgusting effort by the refs and overtime to knock them off is a win for the Patriots, in a way. The good news is that Gronk's injury doesn't look serious and the rest of the guys, minus Lewis, should be back sooner rather than later. It also helps that with the exception of the game at Houston in two weeks that's been flexed to a Sunday night game, the Pats don't have another tough game on the schedule. This was the type of game that, after all the dust clears, makes of of Patriots Nation happy that they are Pats fans.

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