Bad divisions? The Seahawks are probably going to be a playoff team, the Cards are talented at every position other than QB, and the Rams are competitive.

As for the Pats, while the division is having a down year, the Dolphins are tough, and the Jets have been to the AFC championship game twice in the last five years.

The AFC West is by far the worst division, followed by the NFC East.

Now, with all that said, the Pats still lost all those games because they didn’t control what they could control: their own play.

Tim8450, officiating is hard – but when your group sends out press releases during the lockout pointing out supposed mistakes of the replacements, the implication being that they would not commit such mistakes, you’ve kinda put yourself under the microscope once you come back to the job with a hefty raise to boot. Well, Mr. Press Release – put up or shut up.

Inadvertant whistles nearly every weekend, clocks running during measurements, players touching the ground with a knee and an elbow that are allowed to rise and score, 10 minutes to get a spot correct out in Oakland – they’re not “putting up”.

Meanwhile, the Collinsworths and Michaels of the world, who led the charge pointing out everything they thought was a mistake, are mute. Egregious mistakes are fine now – part of the game. Nothing to see here folks – keep moving.

Lol 51? Please, The patriots gained much more from this game than the 49ers did. At least both teams play in bad divisions, I dont remember the last time the pats almost tied twice to the same sad team in one season.

but after watching this game, i have no doubt the refs were helping the patriots.

final score should have been 51-24

Dear Santa. All I want for Christmas is a new commissioner for the NFL.

Fortunately SF still won it. And this is coming from a Cards fan.

This is why I will not watch any Patriot’s games. Although, I admit I did watch ONE of their home games earlier this year (smile).

No, they just know how to run a football team. They’re not arrogant, they keep their egos under control, and they allow the experts to make football decisions. In other words, they’re nothing at all like your hero, Al Davis.

Ref’s blow calls, it is part of the game. Reply can fix some of those, but not all of them. As a Dolphins fan, I think every call goes against us. Obviously, both Pats and Niners fans felt the same way on Sunday night. This isn’t going to change anytime soon.

What I also did see, is the Niners take it to the Patriots 3 out of 4 quarters….on their home turf. Granted, Brady woke up the offense in the 3rd quarter and that run was impressive, but it was followed by a scoring run by the Niners to finish off the Pats.

If I was a Pats fan, I would be more concerned about that defense and their inability to stop the Niners offense. You have one of the greatest QB’s to play the position and even putting up 31 points, wasn’t enough to beat the Niners. I thought Belichik was some type of defensive genious or something. Fix the defense or the Pats are going to have to score 50 a game in the playoffs to win it all.

We can all agree the refs blew this game. But to say they helped one team more than the other is bogus and all of you homers need to get your eyes checked.

I love how all the conspiracy theorists act like this was utterly and totally one sided. As if Wilfork wasn’t getting held all game long, sometimes by 2 of the 9ers at the same time. Kyle Love the victim of offensive holding much of the game as well.

And that sure looked like a catch that the 9ers fumbled on. I’ve seen many similar catches given oks by the refs, and other similar ones called as fumbles. It depends on the ref crew and how much they’re letting things go in any given game.

I have ref’ed and it is hard. As a ref, you don’t care who wins, you are just trying to get your calls right. What you do get is constant whining and complaining. If you think it is so easy, just sign up and try it to enlighten yourself. Look at this particular play from the ref’s position on the field. Even on reply, it looked to me like two feet down, then in the process of turning upfield he had it knocked out. Not much time elapsed but once you make a football move, it is arguably possession.

Everyone whines and demands perfection when most QB’s are successful with a ~60% completion rate and running backs that make 4 yards per carry.

Refs are not perfect, quit demanding perfection and just enjoy the game. Reading these comments, it is pretty clear that no of us are perfect either.

Yeah, keep whining about how “unfair” it is that the Niners didn’t blow out the Pats. The “best defense in the league” gave up a 28 point lead.