The New England Patriots recovered it and had a chance to steal a game the Cardinals appeared to have all wrapped up.

Then with six seconds remaining and his team down 20-18, Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski lined up for a 42-yard field goal to win the game.

It sailed wide left.

"Our team stuck together and we found a way to win and that really is all that matters," Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt said. "You learn from it. It is a lot easier to learn from it in this situation."

If not for the missed field goal, it would have been easy to point at Williams' fumble as the reason for the loss.

Whisenhunt said Williams was "torn up" about what happened, but he also added that he felt Williams made some good runs late in the game.

"We thought we had a chance to win the game without ever having to give it back to them," Whisenhunt said. "This (fumble) was unfortunate."

Whisenhunt said he spoke to Williams about the incident and told him a story about former Steelers running back Jerome Bettis, in which Bettis fumbled in a similar situation during a 2005 playoff game.

"In the next two weeks, Jerome was huge for us as far as getting to the Super Bowl," Whisenhunt said. "That's the type of mentality that you got to have. You got to learn from it and you got to go forward."