If the Patriots had made that extra point earlier, they wouldn't have gone for two point conversions on both of their following touchdowns. An extra point has a 95% rate for success whereas a two point conversion is in the 40-50% range.

The existence of this thread explains why my NFL thread got so few replies.

It's a lot better since they modified the sudden death rule. Previously it was really crappy that a team only needed to win the coin toss, move the ball over half the field and score a field goal to win. Now the defense gets a fair chance to give their offense a chance to get the ball.

As for this specific football game, given how the Patriots marched down the field again and again towards the end of the game and given how inept the Falcons offense was, is it even reasonable to expect that the Falcons could have won? Their defense was worn down because the Patriots had the ball for almost 40 minutes compared to the Falcons' 20, so in turn the Patriots defense was rested and still in good shape. The Patriots didn't even need many plays to march down the whole field in overtime. They made it look easy.