Secondary is a primary concern

In this, arguably his greatest year as coach of the Patriots, Bill Belichick now faces a most improbable challenge. Only five games remain in the regular season. And all that may stand between the Patriots and another trip to the Super Bowl is a secondary made of paper maché.

Winners by a 48-28 score over the host Miami Dolphins yesterday, the Patriots improved to 7-4 in a season now devoid of Tom Brady, Rodney Harrison and any simple logic. With each passing week, the Pats appear to have found their Steve Young, a multi-talented quarterback-in-waiting unafraid to throw, run, or defiantly shoulder his way through an opposing muddle of players (before the whistle or after). With any luck at all, the kid could be 9-2.

What we would be saying about the Patriots then is what we can say about them now: In the mass of relative mediocrity that is the AFC, so long as they keep lowering their shoulders, they have a chance.

All of that brings us back to the here and now, to the approaching matchup with a Pittsburgh Steelers club that might very well be the best team in the conference, no matter the record of the overrated Tennessee Titans. For the Pats, the game will provide other challenges, too. The Steelers have allowed the fewest points in the NFL while possessing the league's top-ranked unit against both the run and the pass. They have nearly twice as many sacks (37) as the Patriots (21), and more than any other team in the AFC.

In their next game, the Patriots aren't likely to score quite as much.

And sooner or later, they will have to stop somebody.

For Belichick in particular, that latter aspect must be keeping him awake at night, particularly now that he is negotiating his way through a minefield without his previously indispensable TomTom. Maybe the coach didn't need just one quarterback so much after all. Belichick appears to have solved what should have been the greatest challenge of this season -- replacing Tom Brady -- and yet now appears to have no means of masking a secondary that made junkballer Chad Pennington look like Slingin' Sammy Baugh.

Let's get right to the point here: Belichick doesn't trust his secondary, explaining why Patriots defensive backs have been playing more like shepherd dogs. The coach isn't asking them to make plays so much as he is asking the opposing quarterbacks to miss them. The Patriots don't pressure the receivers, don't pressure the quarterback, don't pressure anybody, all because Belichick does not want to give up the big play that could put inordinate pressure on Cassel and the New England offense.

Think about it: In the Indianapolis game, the Patriots played off the receivers and opted to make the Colts drive. They did the same against the New York Jets. The coach is making do with what he has, to be sure, and we might all feel better about it if Patriots defensive backs were showing at least a slightly greater propensity to tackle.

But really, against Pittsburgh and in the playoffs (if they get there), can the Patriots win this way? Or is this truly their only hope? Minus Harrison, especially, the Patriots secondary seems especially vulnerable, something Brett Favre all too easily revealed in the fourth quarter of Week 11 in Foxborough. Belichick sometimes seems to trust his secondary so little that he looks unwilling to try anything, which might be a testament to his genius as it is any absence of faith.

Don't just do something. Stand there.

After all, the Patriots are 7-4.

Still, for an accomplished coach who has earned his reputation on the defensive side of the ball, this must all be a most perplexing dilemma. Brady is gone, but the offense rocks; it's the defense that could do in the Patriots. New England might have done something to retain Asante Samuel in preceding years, or maybe the Patriots might have more aggressively pursued Ty Law in recent weeks. Instead, they ended up with Deltha O'Neal playing opposite Ellis Hobbs on a defense with an uncommon mix of both aging and inexperienced linebackers, seemingly leaving the Patriots exposed behind a defensive line that is the obvious strength of the unit.

At this stage, there is really no point in agonizing over the events that led them here.

As Belichick himself would say, it is what it is.

The good news? Nobody knows how to make do quite like the fascinatingly complex head coach of the Patriots, the monotone man whom Bill Parcells playfully referred to as "Glum." After all, this is where the mettle of a coach is truly tested. Years ago, former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips was talking about Don Shula when he offered the Dolphins' legendary coach the greatest compliment, and you can only wonder now if Bum would have said the same thing about Glum.

He can take his'n and beat your'n and take your'n and beat his'n.

If anybody can fix that Patriots secondary, after all, it's Bill Belichick.

Isn't it?