The Patriots will face the winner of Sunday night’s NFC championship game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Philadelphia Eagles.

For the Jaguars to get so close only to fall apart after a Cinderella-like season seemed especially cruel, with Blake Bortles outplaying Brady for much of the game only to have New England make some tremendous second-half adjustments that essentially eliminated Jacksonville’s offense from the game.

New England and Brady survived losing their top receiver, Rob Gronkowski, to a concussion in the first half on a brutal helmet-to-helmet collision with Jacksonville’s hard-hitting safety Barry Church. Gronkowski came up from the hit looking disoriented and was immediately taken to the locker room for evaluation, being ruled out for the rest of the game shortly after.

Brady ended up completing 26 of 38 passes for 290 yards and two touchdowns on the day, helping his team survive against one of the NFL’s top defensive units. Bortles was nearly as good, completing 23 of 36 for 293 with one touchdown, but with Leonard Fournette unable to provide much in the way of a rushing attack, New England was able to attack Bortles far more aggressively as the game progressed, and that seemed to provide the difference.

In an on-field interview with CBS after the game, Brady discussed the hand injury that had dominated the conversation before the game.

“I’ve had a lot worse,” Brady said. “I didn’t know that on Wednesday, it was a crazy injury.” He added, “Today we did just enough to win.”

On going to the Super Bowl again: “It’s pretty crazy. It’s pretty amazing. To be on a team that wins these kids of games is a great accomplishment.”

Bortles was given one final try late in the fourth quarter to regain the lead, but a fourth-down pass fell incomplete and a despondent Bortles lay on the field trying to figure out how the game had slipped away.

The Patriots’ top receiver for most of the game was Brandin Cooks, a deep threat who caught 6 passes for 100 yards, but it was Danny Amendola who took over in the fourth quarter, catching two touchdowns from Brady to erase Jacksonville’s lead. Amendola finished the game with 7 catches for 84 yards.

The New York Times