I don't even know where my mind was to be honest with you. I was just trying my best not to cry on the field on national TV, and I ended up crying anyway. That was my No. 1 thing, not to cry. But I ended up doing it.
FOXBORO --Take a quick look at Sunday's Patriots-Cardinals game and this is the bottom line you'll find: Gostkowski missed the field goal. New England was down 20-18 and the chance to win it was placed on Stephen Gostkowski's foot at 42-yards out. But the ball sailed wide, wide left. The field goal failed.
As NFL equations go: Gostkowski equals Goat.
If instead you stepped inside the Cardinals locker room, just a few doors down from where Gostkowski was dutifully taking his lashings, you'd find something else.
Football breeds different kinds of goats.
After most of his teammates had bathed in the glow of their win, crowing while packing, and headed to the team bus, Ryan Williams trotted out to his locker. He wasn't smiling, he was thinking. A loss's bullet had skimmed his skull and the running back couldn't stop touching the raw spot left behind.
Williams had fumbled.
Arizona's lead was just two points with one minute to play, but quarterback Kevin Kolb wasn't told to take a knee. That precious lead was instead entrusted, pitched back for Williams to run out.
That's when Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes went after the ball with blood in his eyes.
Williams fumbled on the Cardinals' 33 and New England was delivered a succulent chance.
"I couldn't do anything," Williams lamented. "The only thing I could have done to save that fumble is fall down, and I'm not going out that way. It was a great play by Spikes. Great play."
Before referees could break up the recovery pile and sort out possession, the back was bent over, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together as though praying away waves of nausea.
The moment read clearly: Williams equals Goat.
It was he who was trying not to cry on national TV -- Gostkowski hadn't even entered the equation yet.
Not that it matters in the end, right? The kicker's miss absolved Wiliams of his late-game sin and he was free to whoop and holler with the rest of the joyful Cards.
Maybe in a movie.
"This is going to be on my mind for the rest of the season," he explained. "It reminded me kind of, of 2009 when at Virginia Tech I fumbled against UNC and I actually lost the game for us. So I was having terrible flashbacks, terrible flashbacks. We were able to get the win tonight, but it's something that's not leaving.
"I could have lost the game. Not to be funny, but if Gostkowski would have made that When he missed the field goal, everybody was like, 'Alright, we're behind you 100-percent,' But if he would have made that field goal I wouldn't have gotten those type of responses."
What is there to say but, football doesn't wash out as cleanly as math.
The fumble won't show up where wins and losses are concerned. Where Williams will see it again, beyond the constant replays in his own brain, is on coach Ken Whisenhunt's face.
Williams said he was "sort of" surprised the team didn't take a knee, but was more excited to be entrusted with the ball when the game was on the line. Think that'll happen again anytime soon? Wisenhunt was asked where the play failed and could only say, "You know what, I am still traumatized by seeing the ball pop out. I couldn't really tell you until I look at the tape."
This is a player who already feels behind.
Williams, a second round pick in 2011, missed his entire rookie season with a torn patella tendon in his right knee. You could tell the kid was still battling after Sunday's game was over. Williams couldn't see the win for the rust he felt on his body, for the mistakes he made that night and even in the week before.
Are he and Gostkowski going to form a support group? Maybe invite Billy Cundiff to head the thing? No. But they do share an unfortunate understanding that belies the box score.
Both will have to deal with a very personal mistake in the ultimate team game. Different outcome, same label: Goat.
"Got to go back to the drawing board and get things right because I'm going to be a playmaker for this team -- no ifs, ands, or buts about it," Gostkowski -- no, Williams -- said.
"Imma be alright."