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Patriots cut Chris Harper after misplayed punt

Patriots rookie Chris Harper muffed a punt early in the fourth quarter with the Patriots leading, 21-7.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff

Chris Harper’s muffed fourth-quarter punt cost the Patriots a win, and now it cost him his job, too.

The Patriots cut the rookie receiver Monday, fewer than 24 hours after his blunder Sunday night appeared to open the door for the Broncos’ comeback and 30-24 win, New England’s first loss of the season. It’s the second time Harper, who signed as an undrafted free agent in the spring, has been cut.

The critical error came early in the fourth quarter. With the Patriots leading, 21-7, a three-and-out forced the Broncos to punt. Harper failed to field it cleanly, and the Broncos recovered on the New England 36. They scored four plays later to cut the deficit to 21-14.

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Harper has spent much of the season on the practice squad, but he played in three games: against the Steelers in the season opener, then the last two against the Bills and Broncos. He made no official catches (one pretty play against Buffalo was brought back by a penalty) and returned three punts for 17 yards.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick’s intolerance of fumbles, especially from players on the fringes of the roster, is well known.

Race is on

The race for the AFC’s No. 1 seed is on.

The Patriots (10-1) are on pace for a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the conference playoffs, but the Broncos (9-2) and Bengals (9-2) are not far behind.

With five weeks left in the regular season, and with each of those three teams having five games to play, a dizzying number of possibilities remain. Let’s toy with some hypotheticals and the tiebreaking scenarios that could result.

It’s very possible that the Patriots end up with the same record as the Broncos or Bengals. New England has two more games that look like tough ones: at Houston Dec. 13 and at the Jets Dec. 27. Denver and Cincinnati also have two games each against teams above .500: against Pittsburgh and against each other.

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■   If the Patriots tie the Broncos: Denver would be the higher seed by virtue of the head-to-head win.

■   If the Patriots tie the Bengals: It could get far more complicated. They don’t play each other this season, so the next tiebreaker would be conference record. Right now, they’re both 7-1. If that holds, next is their record against common opponents (minimum of four games), then the teams’ strength of victory — the combined winning percentage of opponents a team has beaten — followed by strength of schedule.

■   If the Patriots tie the Broncos and the Bengals: One unlucky team gets stuck without a first-round bye. The first tiebreaker is head-to-head, but only if one team swept both of the others, which would be the case if Denver beats Cincinnati in Week 16. After head-to-head, it’s the same steps until there is a winner: conference record, record against common opponents (minimum of four games), strength of victory, strength of schedule.

Bengals-Broncos, which will be on “Monday Night Football” three days after Christmas, will go a long way toward clearing all of this up, if you haven’t noticed. Clear your schedules now, Patriots fans.

One other note: If the Patriots suffer a second loss, potentially bringing tiebreakers into play, the best result for them in the Broncos-Bengals game would be a tie, which would count as half-win, half-loss. The two-loss Patriots would be seeded higher than the 2½-loss Broncos and Bengals.

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Absence was felt

In his own special way, Patriots coach Bill Belichick acknowledged Monday what was plain for everybody to see during the team’s loss to the Broncos Sunday: New England’s run defense lost a little something after Dont’a Hightower got hurt.

The linebacker left late in the first half with a sprained MCL and did not return.

“Throughout the game we had our ups and downs,” Belichick said. “We had some good plays and we had some not-so-good ones. So I mean, overall, it needs to be better, obviously.

“We have to do a better job than that. But I mean, we had some good plays, we had some negative plays. We had some plays where we had a lot of things play kind of the way we wanted to, and then there were other plays that broke down. We have to work on our consistency.”

In the first half, Denver ran for 74 yards on 18 carries — 4.1 yards per carry.

In the second half and overtime, Denver ran for 105 yards on 14 carries — 7.5 yards per carry. That included C.J. Anderson’s touchdown runs of 15 and 48 yards.

On the season, the Patriots allow 4.1 yards per carry.

Belichick did not offer a health update on Hightower.

Clearing it up

Monday brought clarity to one frenzied moment at the end of regulation Sunday night. As the Patriots drove for what became a game-tying field goal, Broncos defensive end Malik Johnson was hurt after one play, so officials called an “excess timeout” to allow him to get off the field.

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Unlike a normal timeout, however, the clock started running at the referee’s signal, according to NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino, who explained the situation on the NFL Network.

In the moment, this caused confusion for the Patriots and especially for Belichick, who gave one sideline official a vulgar earful.

“The way it was ruled was right,” Belichick said Monday. “The communication and so forth involving the play and all that probably could have been handled better somehow.”

Blandino expressed a similar sentiment.

Spreading the word

Rob Ninkovich will appear at the Mechanic Street YMCA in Foxborough Tuesday afternoon to spread the league’s “Play 60” message, which encourages kids to eat healthy and exercise for 60 minutes per day. Ninkovich will also surprise nine students with tickets to the Patriots game against the Eagles Sunday.

Tim Healey can be reached at timothy.healey@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @timbhealey.