Why is Atlanta throwing on 2nd down with an 8 point lead on 2nd and goal and just over 4 minutes left to go in the game? Run the ball twice, kick the field goal and you have an 11 point lead with less than 3 minutes left. If you score the TD, great, but if you don't, the field goal is almost as good. That's example 1,041,133 why the Patriots are smart and everyone else is stupid.
And now they don't get in on third down, so they have to kick the field goal, and Seattle will have roughly 40 more seconds than they should have had to score twice.