EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- It all happened so quickly Sunday afternoon, , , the with the ball, the whole big jumble of weirdne s that gave the a rare chance to vanquish a perennial nemesis and control their playoff future.So let's take it piece by piece. The , looking oddly disinterested in the proce s and . That game ended right around the time the and went out to midfield for the overtime coin to s, an action nece sitated by the first blowing a 17-3 lead and then a 20-13 lead with two minutes left in the game.But the won the to s, and this had all the makings of a few pa ses to to set up a field goal from the best kicker in the game, .Except said the wanted to kick off. He had double checked -- asking three or four times -- when Bill Belichick told him.Belichick had made unconventional game management decisions in the past -- or -- but , kicking off in overtime when there was a chance the would never touch the ball.On the ' sideline, 's first reaction when he heard the win the to s, was "stop 'em.""Then, it was our ball, and it was 'What the hell?'"But what the heck, the went on their best drive of the day. had been off target for parts of the day, especially on some deep Kyle Bird Jersey balls, and had let Fitzpatrick's best pa s of the day -- a bomb down the middle of the field that might have averted overtime entirely -- fall off his fingertips. But with this rare, head-scratching gift, Fitzpatrick roused the offense that has sprung to life in the last month and has propelled the . He completed a short pa s to Enunwa, who turned . He had Marshall for 20 yards. And then, five offensive plays after Belichick made his fateful call, Fitzpatrick hit . Before the frame-by-frame analysis of the coin to s was even over, before the comments by officials and players could even be fully deciphered, the game was over, and ."I had broken the team down and I said, 'When we win, don't act like we won the ,'" Marshall said later. "We won -- everybody stormed the field, the freaking fireworks go off."Marshall found his old Denver head coach Josh McDaniels, now New England's offensive coordinator, amid the celebration and sought an explanation for what had just happened. Marshall said McDaniels told him the wanted to play the field position game -- that their injury-decimated offense had done so little during the day (just one touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter) that they would put the game in the hands of their defense instead, hoping to stop the deep in their own territory, force a punt and then have a short field for what would have been the game-winning field goal try."He explained a little but I didn't believe him," Marshall said.Belichick echoed what McDaniels had said: "I thought that was the best thing to do. There wasn't any confusion."It was, it turned out, a gro s miscalculation -- the never touched the ball in overtime, having perhaps underestimated the ' offense -- but it might not have been a total lo s for the . , combined with , makes it le s likely that the will , and the ' explosive offense would seem to be a more dangerous playoff opponent for the than the , who have beaten the .The can still clinch the No. 1 overall seed in the AFC with a win over Miami . And the truth is that they nearly beat the without receivers or , without defensive backs or and without left tackle , . Belichick may have been right, after all, to have limited confidence in his offense after a day in which the limited the to one -- yes, one -- third-down conversion in 10 tries. The ' primary goal now, with the AFC East already a sured and a first-round bye , is to rest their players and get them into as good health as po sible before the divisional round of the playoffs. They are probably good enough to beat the at half strength. They were very nearly good enough to beat the , too.But this is a different team than the one that folded into a heap of mistakes against the earlier this season. Their previous four wins had come against losing teams, but beating the felt different, a step up in cla s even if New England had taken half a step down because of a full injury report."We've grown since the middle of the season, we're finding ways to pull games out," coach Todd Bowles said. "We're still growing. I'm not saying we've arrived. But they fought. They're gritty."In recent years, the borrowed plenty of Rex Ryan's swagger without taking on any of his early succe s with the . Bowles is not the boasting sort, but for a franchise that acknowledges the are the king of the hill -- they have colonized the hill, in reality -- this victory was important psychologically. The had to prove to themselves -- and maybe to the , too -- that they are capable of beating the when they have to. So that maybe the next time they meet, and it could be during the playoffs, Belichick will have to think twice about daring the ' offense to beat him.But first, the have to win one more game against, well, everybody knew it would come to this from the day , the . Fitzpatrick still has friends in Buffalo -- it's also where he and Chan Gailey first had succe s together -- and he shook his head and ruefully noted that there would be no shortage of material for reporters this week. And within a few minutes of that weird sequence of events, there was another installment, Ryan behind the podium."We don't want to be in a spoiler role," Ryan said. "That wasn't our goal. But the know they're going to get our best shot."They didn't really get one of those from the . But after so many years of futility against their archrival, the were probably due for some weirdne s to go their way. They will take a strange decision, a victory and another breath of playoff life however they can get them.Follow Judy Battista on Twitter . Shawn Kelley Jersey