Thud.

That’s the sound of the New England Patriots playoff hopes crashing to the ground on Thursday night.

It pretty much looks over.

The Patriots certainly didn’t look like a playoff team during their 24-3 drubbing at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium.

And it’s likely they won’t be.

The Los Angeles trip is over, and New England’s season may be, too. The best these Patriots can finish if they beat Miami on the road and Buffalo and the Jets at home is 9-7. That’s likely not going to get them in.

And that’s a feeling they haven’t had since 2008.

“It’s challenging, it’s new ground, new territory to me as a pro,” Patriots special teams captain Matt Slater said. “Take it in stride. My message to the guys is you have to finish what you start. …It’s a part of life.”

And life right now for the Patriots is being lived in territory, as Slater said, they’re not used to as an organization. Last year they were ousted in the Wild Card round and this year it looks like the only wild cards they’ll see is if they’re playing poker while the playoffs are on.

They’re not getting the Rodgers Rate or the Patrick Price. They’re paying the full boat for not having an offense that can score enough points against good teams.

Cam Newton completed 9 of 16 for 119 yards. Hooray, he got his passing yardage into triple digits before giving way once again to Jarrett Stidham with a lot of the fourth quarter left. That will no doubt fuel the fire for those who want to see a lot of Stidham the next three weeks. So did Newton’s horrible throw that resulted in a pick six, and there’s speculation he may be hurt more than he’d like to say. He did say he should have just thrown the ball to the ground.

“Just live to fight another down,” Newton said. “We were in a position where we were trying to make the most of what we had. This was a stingy defense.”

Rams coach Sean McVay’s incredible record after leading at halftime increased to 34-0. The student didn’t need to school the teacher; his players did that for him. They came out and ran the ball down the Patriots’ collective throat, with Cam Akers galloping for 171 yards. They had a scoring drive in the third quarter that felt like it would last until Christmas, taking 9:42 off the clock.

Not what Pats coach Bill Belichick was looking for.

“They did a good job, they’ve had a good running game, they’ve run the ball well all year,” Belichick said. “Sean had a good plan, they executed it well.”

The execution came the way the Patriots often lose games: they get physically overmatched on both sides of the ball; 186 rushing yards allowed on one side, six sacks on the other.

And now there are already three teams (Miami, Indy, Baltimore) that aren’t in the top seven that are still ahead of New England.

“What happens with this team and that team and how that game unfolds, we can’t worry about that,” Slater said. “We just have to represent ourselves as best we can the last three weeks of the season.”

“We’ll take it one game at a time, get ready for our next game,” Belichick said. “That’s what we do every week, I see no reason to do it any differently.”

But it’s all different right now for the Patriots. If this is some sort of a bridge year, well, watch out below.

Tom King may be reached at @Telegraph_TomK on twitter, or tking@nashuatelegraph.com

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