The Morning After: Bad officiating, self-inflicted wounds cost Patriots

Bad officiating and self-inflicted wounds made Thursday’s loss understandably brutal and frustrating.

Whew, that’s going to be a tough one to bounce back from.

The New England Patriots had the Minnesota Vikings served up like a Thanksgiving feast on a silver platter, but everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong in their road trip to the Twin Cities on Thursday night.

It’s even tougher considering they have one of the hardest schedules down the stretch this season. So a road win over the Vikings would have greatly increased their chances of sneaking in through the backdoor in the playoffs.

The sickness from a loss like that one is enough to make an even bigger mess on a Christmas sweater than “mom’s spaghetti.” Of course, there’s always a glimmer of hope when I can sneak an Eminem reference in an article, and the Patriots could surely take a lot of positives away from the loss.

Let’s recap the biggest talking points this morning.