FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — When it comes to the New England Patriots, Tom Brady and the offense always come first.

The defense, no matter how good it is, takes a back seat. And the headlines after Sunday night’s 36-17 beat-down of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC championship game certainly gave props to the offensive stars.

Tom Brady threw three touchdowns and for 384 yards, the latter a franchise postseason record. Chris Hogan caught nine passes for a team playoff record 180 yards and two touchdowns. Julian Edelman caught eight passes for 118 yards and a touchdown.

But the defense made several plays over the course of the game that were just as decisive.

Start in the second quarter. Pittsburgh, trailing 17-6, had just apparently scored a touchdown on a 19-yard pass to tight end Jesse James, who dove into the end zone as he was hit by Patrick Chung and Duron Harmon. But a review of the play showed that he was actually down just inside the 1.

No problem for the Steelers, right?

On first down, Dont’a Hightower and Chung tackled DeAngelo Williams for a 1-yard loss. On second down, rookie defensive tackles Vincent Valentine tackled Williams for a 3-yard loss. On third down, Ben Roethlisberger threw an incomplete pass.

“Honestly, I don’t think anyone said anything,” said veteran defensive tackle Alan Branch. “When that circumstance comes up, we have to go out there and keep them out of the end zone … We just went out and did it.”

That forced Pittsburgh to settle for a 23-yard field goal by Chris Boswell. And instead of being within 17-13, the Steelers trailed, 17-9.

“That was huge,” said safety Devin McCourty. “It’s all about the next play. It’s about everybody fighting hard to the finish and I think that’s what we were able to do.”

In the third quarter, with New England leading 27-9, Pittsburgh took over on its 25. Roethlisberger completed a short pass to Eli Rogers, who fumbled when hit by linebacker Kyle Van Noy. New England’s Rob Ninkovich recovered and, four plays later Brady threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Edelman to make it 33-9.

At the start of the fourth quarter, the Steelers drove to a first down at the Patriots 6. Two runs by Williams gained four yards. On third down, Roethlisberger completed a pass to Cobi Hamilton in the back of the end zone. But no touchdown. Hamilton had stepped out of bounds and was penalized for an illegal touch of a pass. On fourth down, cornerback Logan Ryan broke up a pass to Hamilton and the Steelers turned the ball over on downs.

After forcing a New England punt, Roethlisberger threw an interception to Eric Rowe, setting up the Patriots final score, a 26-yard field goal by Stephen Gostkowski.

Brady wasn’t especially surprised with how the defense played.

“I practice against those guys every day and it’s hard to complete passes,” he said Sunday night. “I know if I can complete them against our defense then we should be fine on Sunday.”

THE PATRIOTS are 4-4 all-time in the Super Bowl. They lost their first two appearances (Chicago in 1986, Green Bay in 1997) then won their next three (St. Louis, Carolina and Philadelphia in 2002, 2004 and 2005). After losing two in a row to the New York Giants, New England defeated Seattle, 28-24, two years ago.

And you can almost bet it’s going to be a close game. In the six previous Super Bowl games in which Tom Brady has been quarterback, no game has been decided by more than four points. New England’s four Super Bowl championships have been won by three, three, three and four points. Its losses to New York have been by three and four points.

HOGAN AND EDLEMAN brought back some long-ago memories for Patriots fans. They became the first pair of Patriots receivers with over 100 yards in the same game since Larry Garron (120 yards) and Gino Cappelletti (109) each went over 100 for the Boston Patriots in a 28-6 victory over Buffalo on Dec. 28, 1963.

BILL BELICHICK broke a tie with Don Shula (Baltimore/Miami) by winning his seventh conference championship. He is tied with Pittsburgh’s Chuck Noll with four Super Bowl victories as a head coach. He will tie Shula and Dallas’ Tom Landry with his 36th career postseason game as a head coach.

Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or:

mlowe@pressherald.com

Twitter: MikeLowePPH