"Obviously, from a coaching standpoint, there’s always a lot of things you could have done better. . . . We’ve got to do a better job, starting with me."
-- Bill Belichick, shortly after noon today.

FOXBOROUGH -- Bill Belichick says something like this after most every loss, of course, but most times we just gloss over it. We usually take it as nothing more than politically correct mumble-babble from the distinguished coach of the Patriots, a man frequently accused of acting as if he is smarter than everyone else and a man who usually is.

But today, in the wake of the Patriots’ implosive 35-34 loss to the Indianapolis Colts last night at Lucas Oil Stadium, the most blindly loyal Belichicklets find themselves in the ultimate conundrum. By agreeing with the coach’s assessment today, they effectively indict him, too. The Patriots played an absolute whale of a game last night against the unbeaten Colts, and the simple truth is that their coach cut the legs out from under them by defying the kind of football fundamentals taught in Pigskin 101.

"I tell the team -- and I think they believe - that I do everything I can every game to win the game," Belichick said this morning at Gillette Stadium. "I hope everybody understands that."

Oh, we all do. But we must all wonder now if Belichick is a man who has no respect at all for the game or the opposition, or if he is a man who has too much. On the one hand, Belichick went for it on a fourth and 2 from his own 28-yard line last night, almost as if failing to acknowledge the existence of an opposing defense. On the other, a man once heralded as one of the great defensive masterminds in NFL history seems to have lost all confidence in his ability to stop Peyton Manning from going 70 yards in two minutes with no timeouts.

A paradox? You bet it is . . . which is just the way Belichick likes it. He likes to keep you guessing, which was NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth’s assessment when the Patriots offense lined up for that fourth and 2 last night, much to the surprise of most everyone locked in to "Football Night in America." The problem is that Belichick’s recent coaching history is dotted with as many such failures than successes, particularly in big games.

In Super Bowl XLII, the Patriots faced fourth and 13 from the New York Giants’ 31-yard line with 6:49 remaining in the third quarter. The Pats led 7-3. Despite the fact that the game was being played indoors, Belichick passed on a 48- or 49-yard field-goal attempt by kicker Stephen Gostkowski that might have given the Pats a 10-3 edge, ultimately turning the ball over on downs when Tom Brady threw an incompletion on a pass intended for Jabar Gaffney.

Had the Pats missed the kick, the Giants would have gained possession on the 38- or 39-yard line. As it was, New York took over possession on the 31. For those seven or eight yards, Belichick entirely passed on the opportunity to score three points, a decision that should have come under far more scrutiny than it did for being downright arrogant. After all, those three points proved to be the margin of defeat.

Really, isn’t that what we’re talking about here? This is football. There are two teams on the field. But Belichick has become so downright obsessed and cocky with his offense that the Patriots can’t seem to win big games anymore, mostly because they play as if they're trying to win a shootout. Faced with the prospect of possibly making an opponent go virtually the length of the field without any timeouts -- or of giving them the ball at his own 29-yard line with two minutes to go -- Belichick chose the latter last night. It was as if the prospect of getting stopped never even occurred to him.

As a result, today’s national assessments of Belichick’s coaching decision contained rather frequent use of the word hubris, a term easiest to define in this way: it’s when mortals begin to act with the recklessness of the gods, as if there is absolutely no consequence for their actions.

Seriously, ask yourselves this today: what if Pete Carroll had made the same decision Belichick made last night? Eric Mangini? Wade Phillips? Some people might be going so far as to call for the removal of those coaches, which no one is suggesting here. But were it not for Belichick’s pedigree and résumé, we would seriously be wondering today if the man had lost his marbles and was competent to stand trial.

If you don’t want to believe the members of the local media, then believe Rodney Harrison and Tedy Bruschi, who openly criticized Belichick’s decision-making.

"Everybody’s entitled to their opinion out there,’’ Belichick said. "I respect that.’’

As for how the Patriots respond to all this, there is no way to know for sure. The damage done to their season last night was considerable. With a win, the Pats would have been in the driver’s seat for a first-round bye and would have had a far better chance of hosting the Colts if the two meet in the playoffs. Now, all of that is in great doubt. For all of the questions the Patriots had entering this season, they might have woken up today as Super Bowl favorites.

Instead, they remain a team with flaws and questions.

And their coach is now one of them.

In a place like Massachusetts, where fairness and liberal thinking are embraced, Peyton Manning must be defended. Even now. Even on the eve of the biggest football game of the year.

In the considerable and extraordinary history of Boston sports, we have had this kind of debate before, of course. Williams or DiMaggio? Munson or Fisk? Larry or Magic? And so now we are the midst of perhaps the consummate either/or, a debate involving two of the greatest quarterbacks in league history, a question to which there is truly no wrong answer.

Brady or Manning?

Click here to read the full debate between myself and Chris Gasper.

FOXBOROUGH -- As surely as the Mass Pike intersects Route 128, the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts remain on a collision course. And as 8-0 meets 6-2 this week in the American heartland, let there be no doubt that the Patriots have more at stake.

"We always enjoy playing them. They’re a great team,’’ Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said in the immediate aftermath of yesterday’s 27-17 win over the Miami Dolphins at Gillette Stadium. "They seem to always be one of the best teams in the league and they’re good in all three [phases], very well-coached. It will be a great challenge for us. We’re 1-2 on the road this year, so we’ve got to go try to play our best game.’’

Indeed they do. Superiority in the AFC and yet another trip to the Super Bowl may depend on it.

For the moment, let’s give the Patriots their due in the wake of a win over the well-coached, pesky and resilient Dolphins. Anyone who projected this game to be a cakewalk hasn’t been paying attention. And while the AFC East is now firmly in the grasp of the Patriots, we all know that nobody in New England is particularly interested in building footbridges to the division championship.

Here, we generally focus on far more meaningful projects.

In yesterday’s win, the Patriots got 82 yards from Laurence Maroney (averaging slightly better than five yards a carry in his last three games) and big plays across the board on defense, from an awakened Adalius Thomas to an unleashed Patrick (The Missile) Chung. Bill Belichick’s latest game plan called for Vince Wilfork to play defensive end -- who needs Richard Seymour? -- with Mike Wright in the middle, and saw the coach continue to thrust more and more responsibility on some young defensive backs who have no reservations about putting their heads down.

"It’s not always perfect and he doesn’t always do everything exactly the way you want it done, but at the end of the play he makes a bunch of tackles and he’s got his guy covered, and he basically ends up being a productive player,’’ Belichick said of Chung, who plays safety like a reckless SCUD. "Patrick works extremely hard. He’s in here early, he stays late -- kind of like [Jerod] Mayo and [Gary] Guyton were last year. He really puts a lot into it. Football’s real important to him and he’s continued to get better on the practice field, both in the kicking game and defensively, and he’s taken advantage of the opportunities he’s gotten. Anybody that works that hard and has that kind of ability he has, I think he’s going to continue to improve. It means a lot to him.’’

And it shows.

This week, of course, Chung and Company will face the most difficult task of their season to date in the Colts and Manning, who is on pace for an NFL-record 5,090 passing yards. In recent years, especially, holding down the Colts has not been realistic goal for the Patriots. The ultimate question this week is whether they can contain Manning enough to emerge with what would amount to New England’s first road victory of the season -- sorry, Tampa doesn’t count -- particularly as the Colts operate with a makeshift secondary devoid of safety Bob Sanders and defensive back Marlin Jackson, among others.

On paper, at the moment, this looks to be a relatively high-scoring and even game. All of that only makes it more critical for the Pats to establish a foothold among the truly elite teams in the conference.

Let’s be honest, folks. A bye and/or home field advantage in the postseason makes all the difference in the world. During Tom Brady’s tenure as starting quarterback, the Pats are 8-0 in home playoff games, 3-2 on the road (including 1-2 in the last three). The last time New England played a postseason game on the road was the 2007 AFC Championship Game, when it self-destructed in the second half of a loss at Indianapolis. In Brady’s last three postseason road games, he has thrown four touchdowns and six interceptions while posting quarterbacks ratings of, in order: 74.0 (loss at Denver, 2006), 57.6 (gift win at San Diego, 2007) and 79.5 (loss at Indy, 2007).

Because of that, and because the Pats are currently doing the chasing, this weekend’s game is of the utmost importance to their championship hopes. With a win, Indy would improve to 9-0 while the Pats would be 6-3, and the Colts would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker. A Patriots win would makes the teams a respective 8-1 and 7-2 with New England holding the tie-breaking edge. With seven subsequent games remaining for each club, the second scenario allows the Pats a very realistic chance of finishing ahead of the Colts by season’s end, meaning New England would be in far better position for a bye or home field.

This week, rest assured that the Patriots and Colts will be dissected and analyzed from every angle and cross-section, from the matchup between Belichick and Jim Caldwell, to Brady and Manning, to Reggie Wayne and Randy Moss. In the NFL, given the history of this decade, there is currently no better rivalry. More often than not, the road to the Super Bowl travels through the junction of Indianapolis and Foxborough, no matter which direction you’re approaching from.

"We're heading into the teeth of our schedule,’" quarterback Peyton Manning told reporters yesterday after the Colts escaped with a 20-17 win over the upstart Houston Texans.

Not so coincidentally, so are the Patriots.

Another week, another game, another relatively systematic dismantling. The Patriots now will celebrate the mid-semester break known as bye week, returning in time for a Nov. 8 meeting with the Miami Dolphins. When the Patriots take to the field next, nearly a month will have passed since they last faced a legitimate opponent.

"We know the whole second half of the season really has a lot of challenges from week to week," Patriots coach Bill Belichick told reporters in the wake of yesterday’s 35-7 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. "But we’ll tackle Miami first."

In the interim, obvious questions remain: What exactly do we have here? How good are these guys really? Are the Patriots truly a Super Bowl contender, or a paper tiger that will throttle bad teams and lose to good ones, like last year’s edition?

Seven games into the journey during which we ultimately learn those answers, here are seven observations on the 2009 Pats:

1. Tom Brady is getting there. Admit it: For all the throws Brady has made this season, none bothered you more than the interception he threw in the end zone yesterday at the start of the second quarter. Still, you can’t help but get the feeling that some of Brady’s mistakes against the Bucs came out of sheer boredom.

Obviously, the competition the last two weeks has been wretched. Nonetheless, a game is a game is a game, and Brady has piled up nine touchdown passes and 688 yards while completing 76.5 percent of his passes over the last two weeks. The numbers may not be as good in November, but the Pats will need him to be every bit as good -- or better.

2. Other than Tom Brady, Wes Welker is the most important man on the offense. Want to hear something extraordinary? With yesterday’s 10-catch, 107-yard performance, Welker now leads the NFL in receptions. And he has missed two games. Welker yesterday caught everything thrown at him -- 10 for 10 -- giving further credence to a recent Sports Illustrated poll that identified him as the most underrated player in the league.

Here? We all know how good Welker is. Of the Patriots’ two losses this year, Welker missed one (at the Jets) and single-handedly carried the New England offense in the other (at the Broncos). Can anybody cover this guy?

3. Even without Richard Seymour, the defense is better than one might have guessed. The Pats again have benefited from the schedule here, but let’s give credit where credit is due. During a first half in which the Patriots have faced just two teams that rank in the top half of the league in scoring -- Baltimore and Atlanta -- they have allowed fewer points per game than any team in the league but Denver and Indianapolis. Neither of those clubs has played as many games as the Pats have.

Take this for what it’s worth, but the Patriots thus far have allowed the fewest rushing touchdowns in the league (one). Some of that is the result of lopsided affairs in the last two weeks. Some of that is because teams like the Broncos and Ravens opted to throw rather than run. Regardless, as Belichick would say, it is what it is.

4. The Patriots might have the best tandem of safeties in the league. On some level, we expected this from Brandon Meriweather, a former first-round draft pick who started to show signs of developing late last season. Yesterday, Meriweather had two interceptions in the first six minutes, returning one for a touchdown. If plays like that continue, he’ll go to the Pro Bowl.

As for Brandon McGowan, who could have guessed this? He forces fumbles and recovers them, all while becoming a major stabilizing force in an area of the team riddled with questions to start the year. Key guy.

5. The running game still needs some work. The problem with a backfield of Fred Taylor, Sammy Morris, and Laurence Maroney is that all three of them have had a history of injuries. So here we are, seven weeks into the season, and Maroney is currently the only one of those three players standing. Presumably, Morris will be back. Taylor seems in greater doubt.

The Patriots throw first and run second. Morris was the obvious back of choice in short-yardage situations before he got hurt, so it will be interesting to see how the Pats fare in that area while he is out. The last two weeks were such blowouts that it’s hard to remember many situations when they had to rely on their running game.

6. The role of third receiver remains unsettled. Sam Aiken had a pair of catches yesterday, including the 54-yard touchdown catch-and-run that gave the Pats a 21-0 advantage in the second quarter. Still, that play had as much to do with poor tackling as it did with Aiken, who nonetheless made a play when the opportunity arose.

So, in the wake of the Joey Galloway failure, who is going to be the guy here? Aiken? Brandon Tate? Terrence Nunn? If the Pats get into shootouts in coming weeks -- New Orleans and Indianapolis are coming up -- the presence of another outside threat could make all the difference.

7. The real season hasn’t even started yet. In the next five weeks, the Patriots will face, in order, the Dolphins (home), Colts (away), Jets (home), Saints (away), and Dolphins (away). Together, those are three competitive divisional opponents and two undefeated teams. The schedule gets softer again in the homestretch -- Carolina, Buffalo, Jacksonville, Houston -- making the next five games all the more important.

Entering this season, given Brady’s knee injury and the changes on defense, Belichick certainly knew his team would need time to jell. The Patriots basically have had a half-season to come together. Because the Denver defeat could hurt New England with regard to playoff seeding, the Indy game takes on additional importance. If the Pats slip up badly in the next five games, their Super Bowl chances will take a major hit.

And here, as well know, the Super Bowl is really all that matters.

"You know, things have turned for the worst awfully quick for this franchise, and it’s my job to get it straightened out."
- Jeff Fisher, Tennessee Titans coach, following Sunday’s 59-0 loss to the Patriots

In retrospect, maybe the bigger story was right there under our noses, buried along with the Tennessee Titans in the snow and slush on Sunday at Gillette Stadium. Maybe the bigger story is not what happened in Foxborough, but rather what did not.

The Patriots did not lose. They have not lost consecutive games since Nov. 5 and Nov. 12 of 2006, when they slipped to 6-3. The Patriots since have played 51 regular season and postseason games without losing consecutive affairs – they are 41-10 during that span – though that is only part of the story. Just as important is the fact that the Patriots have not had a single season this decade like the one the Titans are having right now.

Since the start of the 2001 campaign that marked Bill Belichick’s second season as head coach in New England, the Patriots are the only team in the NFL to have had a winning record every year. In fact, everyone else has had at least one losing season.

All of this brings us back to the Titans, who opened last season 10-0 en route to a 13-3 finish. This year, the Titans were expected to be among the elite teams in the NFL. Tennessee is now learning what everyone has long known to be true, namely that the NFL is a wildly unpredictable league where winning consistently has been virtually impossible.

Except here.

More than anyone else, this is obviously a reflection on Belichick, who has had his chances to stumble. Last season, in particular, stands out above all others. Coming off the disappointment of Super Bowl XLII, the Patriots lost Tom Brady to a knee injury in the first quarter of Week 1. Throughout the year, the New England pass defense was exposed. New England played the 2008 campaign with a quarterback who had not started a game since high school and a defense on the cusp of a major restructuring, and yet the Pats still managed to go 11-5, playoffs or no playoffs.

That Patriots team had as much right as the Titans (or more) to completely unravel and spin wildly out of control. Instead, the Patriots beat the teams they were supposed to beat and generally maxed out given their level of talent and assorted issues.

Does this mean Belichick is perfect? No, no, no. A thousand times no. As colleague Chris Gasper pointed out in today’s Globe, the Joey Galloway failure rests exclusively on Belichick, who buys the groceries with which he prepares dinner. Galloway was in the league for 14 seasons before the Patriots signed him during the offseason, so the body of work was considerable. There are countless people who have coached and/or played alongside him. The fact that Galloway got here (and left) without being able to pick up the New England offense suggests that the Patriots made some serious blunder in evaluating him because there are simply no secrets in this age of the internet, scouting reports and loose lips.

And lest the most blindly loyal Belichick supporter thinks Galloway stands alone, he does not. In 2006, the shortage of wide receivers hurt the Patriots amid the Deion Branch affair; Belichick himself admitted as much when he subsequently went out and acquired both Randy Moss and Wes Welker. Monty Beisel was a bust. So was Chad Brown. And again given the events of Sunday in Foxboro, maybe it is time to wonder whether the real problem with Adalius Thomas is the player himself or what the Patriots saw in him in the first place.

None of that makes Belichick any different than any other evaluator in any sport because they all get some wrong.

Regardless, this is much is clear – he doesn’t get bogged down by his mistakes. He doesn’t dwell on the problems so much as he focuses on the solutions. As coach, Belichick remains one of the absolute best ever in evaluating his own talent and putting together the weekly puzzle that is his game plan. The Patriots almost never come out and beat themselves, and they certainly do not come out and roll over the way the Titans did on Sunday.

Amid the runs to the Super Bowl titles and the distorted expectations, maybe we all forget that sometimes.

Maybe we forget what New England football once was compared to what it is.

On a day like this, you cannot help but ponder a succession of thoughts . . .

First quarter, 13:36 remaining, scoreless. Tennessee punter Reggie Hodges kicks a 35-yard liner to Julian Edelman, who leaves Titans sliding and sprawling all over the field as he returns the punt a fitting 35 yards. The Patriots complete passes on their first two plays, then take a delay-of-game penalty and a sack before Stephen Gostkowski misses a 39-yard field goal. The Titans get the ball back at the 29-yard line, the precise point they originally punted from, and the precise point from which the Patriots began their possession.

All of that work for, well, nothing.

"The footing was no good, but that goes both ways," Titans defensive lineman Kyle Vanden Bosch said after the 59-0 defeat to the Pats. ``We just had too many mistakes and some of it was footing, but it all falls back on us.’’

Still, at this stage, you can’t help but wonder: Is this going to be a 3-0 game? Maybe 7-6? Or 10-9?

First quarter, 5:51 remaining, Patriots lead 7-0. After Sammy Morris goes down with a knee injury in the first quarter, the Patriots go 79 yards in five plays, the last 45 yards coming on a touchdown run by Laurence Maroney. On the play, Maroney slips through the line as if negotiating his way through a crowded bar on the way to the rest room. Once he sees daylight, he runs as if his bladder is about to explode.

"It was a simple dive play up and we were able to split the defense and Laurence took it full-speed ahead and took it to the house," said center Dan Koppen. "It was a great run by him. He saw the crease and hit it."

Maroney finished with 123 yards on 16 carries, yet the question persists. Fred Taylor is out. Morris may be out. Kevin Faulk is a situational player, which leaves Maroney and BenJarvus Green-Ellis as the only true ball carriers on the Patriots roster.

After all of that talk about the Patriots needing a wide receiver, maybe they actually need another running back.

Second quarter, 9:56 remaining, Patriots lead 17-0. The Patriots complete a six-play, 65-yard drive with a 40-yard touchdown pass from Brady to Randy Moss on a flea-flicker. Green-Ellis takes a handoff from Brady, runs into the line and flips the ball back to Brady, who then fires the first of his five touchdown passes in the quarter. After entering the game without a completion of 40 or more yards this season, Brady now has two in the first 20 minutes, the other being a 48-yard strike to Wes Welker in the first quarter.

After the game, Brady and Welker both note how coach Bill Belichick harped all week on his team’s inability to make big plays on offense.

"I think we just kind of got sick of hearing him and wanted to shut him up," Welker said later. "I think maybe today we did that a little bit."

Second quarter, 0:12 remaining, Patriots lead 45-0. In slightly less than 10 minutes, the Patriots score their fifth touchdown on 5-yard pass from Brady to Welker. During the second quarter alone, the Titans turned the ball over on three straight possessions and the Patriots score five touchdowns on five possessions. New England is pouring it on with ease and effortlessness. On a 30-yard touchdown pass from Brady to Welker that made it 38-0, the Tennessee secondary looks so downright clueless that you cannot but wonder if you are now witnessing the most disgraceful performance by a team in the history of professional sports.

"I have never been through anything like this before," Titans coach Jeff Fisher said after the game. "You know, I am very disappointed, obviously, and embarrassed to say the least."

Said Titans quarterback Kerry Collins, "It’s about as bad as it gets, period, the end. We just need to take a look at where we are at and use this bye week to our advantage and get this thing figured out."

Added Tennessee tight end Bo Scaife, "We’re just not playing very well right now."

Ya think?

Third quarter, 10:13 remaining, Patriots lead 52-0. Having built a 45-0 lead at halftime, the Patriots receive to open the second half and begin the third quarter with their first-string offense. They march 65 yards in nine plays for yet another touchdown, this one on a 9-yard strike from Brady to Moss.

The mind starts to wander: Is Belichick running up the score for comments made by Fisher in the wake of the Spygate mess? Are Patriots still ticked about the Bobby Wade block that caused a knee injury to Rodney Harrison in 2006, the last times the teams met?

Slightly more than eight minutes later, on fourth and 6 from the Tennessee 31-yard line -- and with Brian Hoyer at quarterback – the wheels spin faster. The Patriots are too far to kick a field goal and too close to punt. The Pats go for it and convert, then score another touchdown to make it 59-0 before the third quarter officially draws to a close.

Naturally, this leads to inevitable questions of sportsmanship.

"No," Fisher said when asked if he felt the Patriots pushed the envelope. "[Throwing] was their plan going in. Why are they going to change their plan?"

Said Belichick, actually looking and sounding somewhat uncomfortable by the result: "When we put Brian in … look, we’re not trying to do anything but run our offense. And that’s what we wanted to give Brian a chance to do was to run the plays he’s going to have to run at some point if he plays, whether they’re passes, third-down plays, check-with-me plays, whatever they are. We went into the game with a game plan and I know the score got out of hand, but we were just trying to run our offense when Brian or whoever else was in there, whether it was Kendall [Simmons], Dan [Connolly], BenJarvus [Green-Ellis] - and all those guys got to play. When they were in there we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. You’ve only got 45 guys for the game. Somebody’s got to play."

Fourth quarter, 6:56 left, Patriots leading 59-0. Titans running back Ahmard Hall runs for five yards before hit by Brandon McGowan, then commits the fifth of six Tennessee fumbles on the day. This one results in the Titans’ fifth and final turnover -- they recovered three fumbles -- when veteran linebacker Junior Seau emerges with the football. Of course, Seau was probably surfing slightly more than a week ago, likely expending more energy than he did against the pathetic Titans.

"That was my training camp," Seau said of the game.

For the Titans, perhaps, that was the unkindest cut of all.

At the end of the day, a soon-to-be 41-year-old man just treated you like a tackling dummy.

FOXBOROUGH - Late in the second quarter, shortly after Terrell Suggs had lunged toward his legs, Tom Brady lobbied for enforcement of the rule named after him. The Patriots quarterback gestured for a penalty, the yellow flag subsequently landing at his feet as if he had just successfully executed a rain dance.

Ask and you shall receive?

“Of course,’’ Brady said yesterday when asked if he thought the play was truly a penalty. “They can’t go low. We learned that lesson [last year].’’

And so here we are, four games into Brady’s return to football with the Patriots holding a 3-1 record, and we are reminded that the on-field cornerstone of this unparalleled Patriots era still does one thing better than anyone. He wins. With yesterday’s 27-21 victory over the Baltimore Ravens, New England improved to a sterling 90-25 in Brady’s 115 starts, a .783 winning percentage that ranks first in the Super Bowl era among quarterbacks with 100 starts. Brady wins by ground, by air, or by penalty, all of which he demonstrated against the Ravens in his ongoing reentry.

Brady ran for one touchdown and threw for another yesterday, the latter contributing to a day in which he completed 21 of 32 passes (65.6 percent) for 258 yards and no interceptions. And though Brady was sacked three times for 24 yards - one produced a fumble that the Ravens recovered for a touchdown - Baltimore twice committed roughing-the-passer penalties that significantly contributed to a New England win.

Thanks to the first such transgression, the Patriots turned a potential fourth and 9 at the Baltimore 37 into Brady’s 1-yard touchdown run and a 10-7 lead.

As a result of the second, New England turned a potential third and 11 at the Baltimore 43 into a 12-yard scamper by Sammy Morris two plays later that gave the Patriots a 17-7 edge.

They never trailed thereafter.

“Without totally going off the wall here, it is embarrassing to the game,’’ said Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis. “Brady is good enough to make his own plays, [so] let him make the play. When you have two great teams that are going at it, let them go at it. Both of their touchdown drives [in the first half] had personal fouls on them that kept the drives alive. Did that win or lose the game? No, but it got them 14 points.’’

All of this brings us back to Brady, to 2007, 2008, and the 2009 season that is starting to serve as a refresher on just who Brady is and what he stands for. Looking back, he never really piled up the personal statistics so much as he did the W’s. During the first six full seasons of his career as a starter, from 2001-06, Brady averaged roughly 25 touchdown passes and 13 interceptions per season. He passed for more than 4,000 yards only once. He was the consummate, team-first quarterback for the consummate, team-first coach, a man who neatly counterbalanced Peyton Manning’s Most Valuable Player Awards with three Lombardi trophies.

Along the way, we asked the inevitable question: What would Brady do if he had Manning’s offense and weapons?

In the two years since, we got our answer - and ones to questions we never cared to ask. During a 2007 campaign that ended the same way so many of Manning’s have, Brady passed for 50 touchdowns and nearly 5,000 yards. He threw a mere eight picks. He nonetheless went home unfulfilled before showing up for the 2008 regular season, when his season was cruelly cut short by a knee injury in the very first quarter of the very first game. The football gods have a funny way of working sometimes; that is what Brady got for jamming two years of production into one year of work.

Today, having seemingly learned the valuable lessons of the last two years, Brady and the Patriots look far more like the quarterback and team from the earlier years of his career. They both seem to be getting better every week. Yesterday, from beginning to end, Brady was more accurate and efficient than he has been in any game this season, the Patriots using an effective mix of run and pass - and, yes, penalties - to defeat a Baltimore team that, like the Atlanta Falcons before it, came into Foxborough unbeaten.

“The job of the quarterback is to lead the team to the end zone,’’ Brady said when asked about the more balanced offense of the last two weeks. “There are a lot of ways to do it.’’

Indeed, for all the Patriots have accomplished in this decade, maybe they lost their way through the fantasy land that was the 2007 regular season, when games were over by halftime and Brady put up video game numbers. Back then, the Patriots threw first and asked questions later, shooting their way to the only undefeated 16-game regular season in history and assaulting the NFL record book with the most prolific offense of all time. Maybe the Patriots and their quarterback forgot the only rule that once mattered in Foxborough, where the games were almost always tight but the outcome rarely changed.

For Brady in particular, with or without the offensive fireworks, the only rule was to win the game.

FOXBOROUGH -- On fourth and 1 from his own 24-yard line, late in the third quarter of a game his team led by six points, Bill Belichick went for it. And with that single decision, the esteemed coach of the Patriots told you everything you need to know at the moment about the state of his football team.

In the absence of any real on-field leadership, the coach is taking full control.

"The short yardage in our own end, I felt like we could get a yard,’’ Belichick said after the Pats claimed a 26-10 win over the Atlanta Falcons at Gillette Stadium. "I’m sure there would have been plenty of criticism if we didn’t, but we were able to hold onto the ball for a while. If I’m not mistaken, we were pretty much able to hold onto the ball for the rest of the third quarter.’’

And as we all know by now, Bill Belichick is rarely mistaken.

For what it’s worth, a great deal of time has passed since the Patriots last attempted such a bold maneuver, which should tell you plenty. Until yesterday, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Patriots had not attempted to convert a fourth down inside of their own 25-yard line since Oct. 30, 1994. That was 15 years ago. Facing the Miami Dolphins and with his team in the midst of what would become a four-game losing streak, then-coach Bill Parcells went for it on fourth-and-1 from his own 22 with 1:35 left in the half of what was a 6-3 Dolphins lead. The Tuna didn’t like the way that game -- or that season -- was progressing, and so he tried to take charge himself.

Drew Bledsoe converted that play, though he threw an interception two plays later that would give Miami the ball on the Patriots' 29-yard line, leading to a late touchdown and a 13-3 Miami advantage at halftime that resulted in a 23-3 Dolphins win. Those Pats ultimately slipped to 3-6 before tearing off seven straight wins to end the season, finishing at 10-6 to qualify for the postseason before being eliminated by -- you guessed it -- a Cleveland Browns team coached by none other than Bill Belichick.

What does that occurrence have to do with this one, 15 years later and with the Patriots identity changed forever? In some ways, nothing; in other ways, everything. The relevant point is that Belichick is now treating these Patriots in much the same way that Parcells treated those Pats, who were in Year II of great Parcells reconstruction. Belichick is assuming almost complete control of the game, simplifying things to the nth degree and leaving nothing to chance.

For all of the talk that took place (and will continue to) regarding the performance of the Patriots defense, do not delude yourselves. Belichick didn’t trust his defensive unit to start the game yesterday and he certainly didn’t trust his defense after Vince Wilfork went down with an ankle injury. That is precisely why he went for it on fourth and 1 from his own 24. The idea was to keep the ball away from the Atlanta offense and keep Tom Brady on the field, even if Brady was nothing more than a caretaker on a day the Pats clearly had no intentions of getting into a shootout.

Write down this number and remember it: 23:39. That is the amount of time, in minutes and seconds, the Patriots held the ball in the second half. The Falcons had it for all of 6:21. In the final two quarters, New England ran 51 plays from scrimmage to Atlanta’s 19. What Belichick and the Pats did to the Falcons yesterday was what the New York Giants did to the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV, when the Giants held onto the ball for 40:33 -- the Pats’ time of possession yesterday was 39:49 -- while patiently, slowly, moving the ball up and down the field to extend the most favorable matchup of the day: the New England offense versus the Atlanta defense.

As elementary as all of that is -- that is, after all, the oldest game plan in football -- it runs counter to what the Patriots have come to represent in recent years. In 2007, in particular, the Patriots wanted to score and they wanted to score quickly, showing little regard or respect for their opponents. You couldn’t stop them and they knew it. Whether because Brady is coming off an injury or Wes Welker remains sidelined or both, the Patriots offense yesterday was far more deliberate and methodical, operating like a unit as interested in keeping the ball as in punching into the end zone.

Again, for what it’s worth, the Falcons actually averaged more yards per play (5.7) than the Patriots (5.5). In fact, in all three New England games this season, the Patriots have averaged fewer yards per play than their opponent.

What all of this suggests, too, is that Belichick is taking great care in protecting his defense, which isn’t playing nearly as well as people think it is. Entering tonight’s game between the Dallas Cowboys and Carolina Panthers, the Patriots defense has been on the field for an average of just 24:04 per game, less than any team in football except the Giants. The average gain per play against them (5.3 yards) places them a perfectly mediocre 15th. The Pats’ defense hasn’t been good so much as it has been decent, and one can only wonder which way the scales would tip if the unit were asked to be on the field longer, particularly amid the absence of Jerod Mayo, Richard Seymour and, now, Vince Wilfork.

Undoubtedly, that is all a huge reason Belichick elected to roll the dice on his own 24-yard line with 5:19 to play in the third, a gamble that paid huge dividends. As Belichick noted, the Pats subsequently were able to hold onto the ball for a while. (He made no mention of the field goal produced by the drive.) In a worst-case, maybe Belichick figured that the Falcons would score a quick touchdown and take a 17-16 lead, at which point New England would get the ball back with a fresh set of downs needing only a field goal to take the lead.

"I think it was a big play for us in the game,’’ Brady said of the fourth-and-1 conversion. "We had a six-point lead and, if we get stopped, they’re already in field goal position.’’

As it turned out, the Pats didn’t get stopped, the play of choice being a Sammy Morris run that produced a two-yard gain. The Patriots subsequently ran off 11 more plays to kill the quarter, then converted a field goal on the first play of the fourth to take a 19-10 edge.

Once that happened, needing two scores to make up the difference, the Atlanta offense became far more one-dimensional. The Falcons ran just 10 more offensive plays in the game, eight passes and two runs. Michael Turner all but disappeared.

Entering this season, we all suspected the Patriots would have to rely on their offense to win games. We just thought the Pats would try to do it by scoring. Instead, what Belichick has done here is to simplify the game plan and play keep-away, opting for a more conservative offense built on ball control. To date, the Patriots are the only team in the NFL that has yet to commit a fumble, let alone lose one. Only Green Bay has committed as few turnovers (two).

In the end, the Patriots generally have been playing it safe these days.

And when it has come to take calculated risks, their coach is the one taking them.

FOXBOROUGH -- Eyes fixed on the floor and shoulders hunched forward, Bill Belichick slumped through the door this morning at Gillette Stadium. His tone as morose as ever, the coach of the Patriots reluctantly reflected on yesterday’s loss to the Jets, his mood as gray as his trademark sweatshirt.

He looked like he'd been pondering the question that matters:

What does the future hold for this team?

"I think there were things that happened all game,’’ Belichick said of the breakdowns in the 16-9 loss at Giants Stadium. "It happened on all downs and it happened at all field positions, and it happened in all three phases of the game."

Said the coach a short time earlier, "Overall, we just need to get better. That’s the only way to put it."

We all know that, of course. And yet, for the first time in a long time with Tom Brady at quarterback, we must wonder not when the Patriots will sufficiently improve, but if. The Pats entered this season with as many questions as any year in recent memory, with significant turnover on defense and a quarterback coming off knee surgery. Now here we are, two games into the season, and the Pats are a heck of a lot closer to 0-2 than they are to 2-0.

Belichick certainly was not expecting this. No way, no how. The Patriots yesterday held the Jets to 16 points -- "It wasn’t the worst defensive effort we’ve had here, but it wasn’t good enough,’’ said the coach – but they did nothing on offense. Tom Brady completed just 48.9 percent of his passes and the Pats were called for four delay-of-game penalties -- is former Bruins coach Dave Lewis the new offensive coordinator? -- and the Jets controlled the ball for 17:51 of the second half.

This season, despite the injury to Brady, the Patriots seemingly needed to rely on their offense early. New England has undergone significant change on defense, and Brady’s return essentially means that the offense is back intact. The most likely scenario was that the Pats would outscore opponents early in the season, relying on the high-flying antics of Brady, Randy Moss and Wes Welker while outscoring opponents through the first two months. The defense would have time to jell and to catch up.

Now the Pats offense is struggling, having produced just two fire-drill touchdowns via the air in two weeks. Yesterday, the Pats did not find the end zone at all. After Jets safety Kerry Rhodes all but challenged the Pats to a fight last week, cornerback Darrelle Revis went out and almost single-handedly took Randy Moss out of the game. Think about that for a minute. Once the most fearsome bully on the block, the Pats now cannot stand up to Revis and Butthead.

Meanwhile, the Pats got outplayed on special teams and were picked apart on the first drive of the second half, when the Jets scored the only -- and decisive -- touchdown of the game.

"We’re just not doing things as well as we need to do 'em,’’ Belichick said. "In a close division game like yesterday, that makes all the difference.’’

Ah yes, the division. Once the personal playground of your New England Patriots, the AFC East now seems to be anything but. In Week 1, against a Bills team projected to be a doormat, the Pats needed two touchdowns in the final two minutes to escape with a one-point win. Now they have been pushed around by the Jets, who had not won a game against the Pats at the Meadowlands in eight years. The Miami Dolphins, who won the division a year ago, came to Foxborough last season and throttled the Pats in the game that launched the wildcat offense.

For the Pats, there are simply no more gimmes against the teams they once dominated with relative effortlessness.

Naturally, there is still a great deal of football to be played. In the short term, it just isn’t going to get any easier. This week, the Pats must deal with the Atlanta Falcons, who appear to have one of the more balanced and potent offenses in the league. Then the Baltimore Ravens come in. After that, the Pats travel to Denver for the Josh McDaniels reunion before the Tennessee Titans come to Foxborough in Week 6. On paper, at least, the disheveled New England offense will continue to see some good defenses.

Yesterday, dressed in jeans and Birkenstocks to go along with his gray sweatshirt, Belichick wore the look of a frustrated, agitated man. He said even less than usual. Belichick teams are known for playing their best football in November and December, when the games grow in importance and the coaching has taken hold. There is still every chance that these Patriots will be playing meaningful games then, though something is now indisputably clear.

The Patriots have a lot of work to do.

Before the fumble, before the two touchdown catches by Ben Watson and the breathtaking finish by Tom Brady, the fate of the Patriots rested with their defense. And so as the Buffalo Bills moved the down the field at Gillette Stadium, you couldn’t help but get the feeling that you had seen it all before.

The Patriots ultimately pulled out a rather miraculous 25-24 win over the Bills at Gillette Stadium last night, but do not be fooled. The Pats today have as many questions as ever. New England played the final 49 minutes of this game without linebacker Jerod Mayo, the centerpiece of a remodeled Patriots defense that had a slew of moving parts to begin with.

And now?

"Guys were kind of moving around everywhere," linebacker Adalius Thomas said when asked about the impact that Mayo’s injury had on the New England defense. "There were a lot of people moving around on the field."

Meanwhile, at the most pivotal time of the Patriots’ first game following the departures of Richard Seymour, Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison and Mike Vrabel, among others, the Bills moved in for what should have been a kill. Only Brady’s heroics and an ill-timed fumble by Leodis McKelvin spared the Patriots from an ignominious season-opening defeat, though anyone in the NFL will tell you that a win is a win is a win.

The worrisome part? During the most pivotal stretch of what was to that point a 17-13 Buffalo lead, the Bills went 62 yards in 11 plays and took more than 6 minutes off the clock in the middle of the fourth quarter. The Bills thrice converted on third down -- on one sequence, thanks to a penalty, Buffalo converted the same third down twice -- and ultimately scored a touchdown that should have sealed a 24-13 victory with 5:32 to play. Buffalo ran at Derrick Burgess and exploited the aggressiveness of pass rushers Burgess and Tully Banta-Cain, hitting running back Fred Jackson for an 18-yard gain with a screen pass (on third and 15) in addition to what then appeared to be a decisive 10-yard touchdown strike.

"No, they’re a great team," Pats safety Brandon Meriweather said when asked if the Bills exploited any particular New England weakness on that drive. "They just executed well."

And the Patriots didn’t.

The truth? The Bills aren’t a great team. In fact, they are anything but. In the final days leading up to the season opener, the Bills fired their offensive coordinator and cut their starting left tackle. Featured back Marshawn Lynch is currently serving a three-game suspension. The Buffalo offense last night was astonishingly vanilla and nonetheless effective -- Buffalo averaged 4.7 yards per rush -- and bumbling left tackle Demetrius Bell (three penalties) seemed to thwart as many Buffalo drives as anyone wearing red and white.

And then there was this: Until the final five minutes of the game, the Buffalo defense has scored as many touchdowns (one) as the Patriots offense had.

Even with a healthy Mayo -- and that currently seems in doubt -- the early part of this season was going to require some patience with regard to the Patriots defense. There has been too much turnover for the Pats to figure this out overnight. If nothing else, last night’s game validated that, with the Patriots scrambling to pull out a victory despite holding the ball for more than 37 minutes. The New England defense allowed only 276 yards, but the Bills actually gained more yardage per play.

Over the last three years, from the 2006 season that marked the departure of Deion Branch to the 2008 season defined by Brady’s knee injury, the Patriots have been plagued by a consistent problem: their defense simply couldn’t stop someone when it mattered. They lost the 2007 AFC Championship to the Indianapolis Colts when their defense broke down in the second half, then dropped Super Bowl XLII a year later when the New York Giants drove down the field. Last year, the Patriots couldn’t stop just about anyone when it mattered, ranking among the league’s worst in an array of red-zone statistics and third-down conversion numbers.

Now they are beginning a new season highlighted by the return of Brady -- he was positively brilliant in the fourth quarter -- though the potential loss of Mayo now hovers over them. The New England defense had a chance to make plays when the Pats needed them most last night, but they failed to produce when it mattered. Only the magic of Brady and the ineptitude of the Bills ultimately saved them, which might be a familiar theme of this young season as they try to replace their old defense with the new.

"That’s not exactly the way you draw 'em up," Belichick said.

But in the early part of this season, that might just be what you get.

Even before the trade of defensive line stalwart Richard Seymour, the Patriots defense had questions. The secondary has several new cast members and the linebacking corps looks thin, and even Bill Belichick seems to admit that this all could take a while.

"Well, that’s some different players," Belichick told reporters this week when asked about the defensive changes. "You’re asking how they’re going to play? I don’t know, I can’t tell you that. We’ve been a multiple defense since I’ve been here, we’ll continue to be that. We’ll try to put the players out there that we feel are the best for the situation or the game plan or the team we’re playing, and that will be a weekly decision that will be modified during the course of the game as situations and personnel change.

"Some of that’s dictated by the offense, so if they put four receivers out there then I’m sure we’ll have a different group than if they put three tight ends out there," Belichick added. "Those things are all out of our control. Those are offensive personnel substitutions and we’ll match them up as best we can. You know, a lot of things like that we just have to react to. The players are going to play. I think they’ll all work hard, they’ll prepare well and hopefully we’ll play well. That’s our goal. I’m sure you’ll let us know how that goes."

Belichick is a confident man, of course, and he has every right to be. He is the most accomplished coach of his era. He is among the greatest of all time. He is a brilliant evaluator and a consummate strategist, and he is a tremendous instructor. None of those points are particularly arguable. The biggest question this season, assuming the health of cover-model quarterback Tom Brady, is whether the Patriots have the talent on defense to play the kind of defense their coach wants to play,

Belichick has said it before and he’ll say it again: with regard to defense, the only statistic that ultimately matters is points allowed. Last season, the Patriots ranked eighth in the league in average points against, fifth in the AFC. In 2007, they ranked a respective fourth and third. The year before, the Pats finished second in the league and second in the conference, offering convincing evidence that they have indeed been trending in the wrong direction.

Have they been a bad defense, the way that the Detroit Lions are bad? No, no, no. Of course not. But the Patriots have not been a dominating defense either, slipping closer toward mediocrity as Brady has been introduced to his mortality. The last two times the Patriots won the Super Bowl, they ranked either first (2003) or second (2004) in the league in points allowed during the regular season. They were not merely a good defensive team in those seasons. They were an elite one.

Whether this team can return to that level is obviously unclear at this point, and some of us might be far more pessimistic were it not for one simple fact: with Belichick, most anything is possible. Before this run as head coach of the Patriots, Belichick was long regarded as a defensive mastermind. Critics of Bill Parcells will remind you that the Big Tuna has never won a Super Bowl without Belichick. Belichick does not see Pierre Woods or Myron Pryor so much as he sees an 11-man unit, and he has proven deft at disguising the weaknesses of one player by maximizing the strengths of another.

Undoubtedly, that is part of the reason he was willing to sacrifice Seymour for a first-round draft pick in 2011, seemingly creating a hole on a defensive line that seemed to be the only airtight portion of the 2009 New England defense.

"What we’re going to have to do is we’re going to have to play good team defense," Belichick said when asked how the club might replace Seymour. "Whichever 11 players are out there on any given play, in any given situation, then those players are going to have to play that defensive play well. That’s what good team defense is. Which players those are and what situations those will come up in will vary quite a bit from game to game, and even within a game. But that’s the bottom line: we need to play good team defense. I think that’s what we’re all committed to doing here – players, coaches, everybody that’s involved.’’

Since the end of last season, almost all of the major departures in Foxborough have taken place on the defensive side of the ball. When you get right down to it, the offense really hasn’t lost anyone so much as that unit has added Fred Taylor, Chris Baker and Joey Galloway, among others. Again, assuming Brady’s health, the offense is a known commodity. The Patriots will score. The question is whether the Patriots can stop anybody when it truly matters, and the answer to that question will house their chances for a fourth Super Bowl title in the golden era of team history that coincides with Belichick’s tenure.

A word of advice? Be patient. This all could take a while. Perhaps the best news for the Patriots this season is that they will face only two of the league’s top offenses from 2008 during the first eight weeks of the season: the Falcons (10th) and the Jets (ninth), the latter of which now has a rookie quarterback. And while every team has changed personnel -- the Bills, for example, will bring Terrell Owens to town on Monday night behind a revamped offensive line -- the better offensive teams (at least on paper) are not due to meet the Pats until Week 9.

What all of that means, in short, is that while the offense will be facing the potentially challenging defenses of the Jets, Falcons, Ravens, Titans, Buccaneers and Dolphins in the first eight weeks, the defense will have time to catch up.

"There’s a change every year on your team. That’s part of the National Football League,’’ Belichick said. "It’s part of every football team, really, and so we always deal with that. I think we have a lot of good leaders on our team and especially on the defensive side of the ball. … Each team has its own chemistry, its own dynamics, and I think ours is very good. It’s different, but I think that our players, especially some of the players that have not only been here longer but have a significant role on our team, have done a excellent job with their ability to lead and set a positive example for our football team, regardless of what side of the ball they’ve been on. No doubt about it. It’s different, but I think it’s good.’’

As usual, time will tell. But Belichick will be the first to tell you that the goals in New England are different than in most other places. Here, people are no longer interested in making the playoffs so much as they interested in bringing home the Lombardi Trophy.

And as everyone knows, you can’t spell Lombardi without the D.

On the very fine line between today and tomorrow, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots now teeter dangerously. Richard Seymour is gone. Questions abound. And the most steely-eyed franchise in sports suddenly sits in a rather worrisome transition.

Eight days before their scheduled season opener against the Buffalo Bills on Monday Night Football, the Patriots today traded Seymour to the Oakland Raiders for a first-round pick in the 2011 draft. In the long-term, the deal seems to make all the sense in the world. The question is how much the Pats sacrificed in the short term during the rapidly advancing career of quarterback Tom Brady, creating another hole on a defense that had enough issues to begin with.

You may be in favor of this deal. You are just as likely to be against it. That very fact only accentuates the truth that Belichick may have just gambled on the 2009 season and his legacy going forward.

``Any transaction we make is with the goal of what is best for our team and, as difficult as it is to part ways with a player of Richard’s stature, many factors were taken into account when we considered this trade,’’ Belichick said in a statement. ``As an organization, we feel the trade with Oakland brings sufficient value and is in the long-term interest of the club. We are extremely grateful for the huge impact Richard’s elite level of performance had on our success and we wish him the very best during the rest of his career.’’

So there you have it: long-term interest of the club. Meanwhile, Brady is coming off a knee injury and the Pats are about to begin another season, and we must now wonder whether they have the horses on defense to win the Super Bowl this year.

By now, we all know how it works here regarding the Pats and their brilliant, distinguished coach. In the eyes of many, Belichick earned a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card the moment Adam Vinatieri’s kick sailed through the uprights in Super Bowl XXXVI. If Belichick didn’t get one then, he certainly did three years later, when the Pats toppled the Philadelphia Eagles for their third title in four years. As if tapped below the kneecap with a rubber mallet, the card-carrying Belichicklets heard the news of Seymour’s departure and immediately went into propaganda mode.

He must know what he’s doing. In Bill we trust.

In the long-term, for certain, the Seymour trade is entirely logical. He will be a free agent at the end of this season. The Pats now appear to have the money to sign Vince Wilfork to a new, long-term deal. As colleague Mike Reiss points out, the NFL might very well have slotted rookie salaries in time for the 2011 draft, when the Pats will have Oakland’s selection in the first round. Come that time, the Pats could have both a selection in the upper tier of the draft and a cost-efficient one, too.

In the interim, here’s the problem: what about this year? Doesn’t this deal another potential blow to a Patriots defense that already looks a little shaky? And haven’t we learned by now that the Pats must maximize every year with Brady, particularly after his cataclysmic knee injury of last season?

With regard to the 2009 Patriots defense, let’s not delude ourselves. After the preseason and entering the Sept. 14 opener, the defensive line was the only area that looked to be trouble-free. In Seymour, Vince Wilfork and Ty Warren, the Pats had three first-round picks that were the foundation of the unit. Those three players might very have comprised the best defensive line in the game. Now Seymour is gone in favor of Jarvis Green, Ron Brace, Mike Wright or Myron Pryor -- or any combination of them all -- and the simple truth is that there is enough reason to question every one of them.

Meanwhile, the Pats seem to have only two proven and capable linebackers -- Jerod Mayo and Adalius Thomas -- in front of a defensive backfield that seems currently entrenched in a game of musical chairs. Beyond the defensive line, especially, there are lots of new faces and a cast of new draftees, which cannot help but make you wonder if the Pats will need to score 40 points a game through the first two months of the season while Belichick sorts out all the pieces.

The point? If the Pats lose another chance at a title this year because their defense proves incapable of making a big stop -- doesn’t that really cover the last three years in a nutshell? – Belichick will have some questions to answer. (Of course, that hardly means he will actually answer them.) For a man with a well-earned reputation as a defensive mastermind, Belichick’s last three teams have been exposed when it came time to make the defining stop, which is the biggest reason the Pats have now gone a full, four-year term without a championship.

In the even bigger picture, of course, transition was inevitable. At this stage, we can only wonder whether the Pats put it off too long after winning the Super Bowl in 2005. In the last year, through the retirements of Rodney Harrison and Tedy Bruschi as well as the trading of Seymour, the Pats effectively have ripped out the spinal cord from the defense that backboned the consecutive titles in Super Bowls XXXVIII and XXIX. From those teams, the centerpiece defensive back (Harrison), linebacker (Bruschi) and defensive lineman (Seymour) are now all gone. Maybe Brandon Meriwether, Jerod Mayo and Wilfork are the heirs to those thrones. Maybe they are not.

For Belichick and for the Patriots, this suddenly appears to be a pivotal time in their evolution. Their dynasty from the first half of this decade is now a thing of the past, symbolically and otherwise. The Pittsburgh Steelers have won two titles since the Pats last won a Super Bowl and the Indianapolis Colts have won one. The core of Belichick’s defense now has been transplanted. Belichick has not made a move as this one since releasing Lawyer Milloy just before the start of the 2003 season, a move that seemed to blow up the coach’s face when the Pats subsequently absorbed a 31-0 loss to the Bills in Week 1.

By the end of that season, the Patriots were Super Bowl champions and Belichick looked like a genius.

But what happens if this one goes the other way?

If you are Vince Wilfork, and if you are serious about making a point, you really have no choice. You have to sit out minicamp. You have to sit out training camp. And most importantly, you have to sit out games.

And even then, you probably are not going to get what you want.

At least in New England.

Here’s a tip, Patriots followers: Prepare now for life without Wilfork. The talented nose tackle of the Patriots yesterday confirmed what has been speculated for the last week or so, namely that he is dissatisfied with his contractual situation and that he deliberately skipped the recent organized team activities (known as OTAs). Technically speaking, OTAs are voluntary. At the moment, Wilfork is no different than Manny Ramirez during the initial days of spring training, minus the guise of an ailing grandparent.

He is not obligated to be there. And at the moment, he has no intention of giving the Patriots anything above and beyond the contractually required.

"My main thing is that Vince Wilfork is looking out for Vince Wilfork, point-blank," Wilfork said during a charity event yesterday. "Whatever it may be."

And so, once again, we are reminded that there are pluses and minuses to everything. For every Randy Moss who comes to New England in search of that elusive Super Bowl title, there is a man like Wilfork who has the titles and wants his money. Corey Dillon came, Asante Samuel went. With a few exceptions -- Adalius Thomas seems to stand out -- the Patriots have resisted breaking the bank in order to preserve their roster. Even Tom Brady took a little less.

Always and without exception, the Patriots put the team first. No part is greater than the whole. After last season, coach and czar Bill Belichick can even hold up Brady and prove that the Patriots can win without him. The Pats missed the playoffs despite an 11-5 record, but, at the end, their defense was a much, much bigger problem than their offense and Matt Cassel had been elevated to elite status.

The Pats made the player -- not the other way around.

Now, Wilfork is the latest in a line of dissatisfied Pats that includes Adam Vinatieri, Deion Branch, and Samuel. All of them ended up elsewhere. Some time in the next few months, like those other three, Wilfork must decide whether he wants to take less and stay in New England or get more and go elsewhere. Maybe he has made up his mind already. All things considered, sitting out the OTAs was a relatively worthless exercise for Wilfork, save for the fact that it made his feelings public.

Minicamp won’t mean all that much, either. For that matter, neither will much of training camp. The only way Wilfork begins to hurt the Patriots is to sit out games, a decision that also requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice. So it goes in an NFL where the team has most of the rights and the players have virtually none.

Wilfork knows this as surely as his agent does. Even if Wilfork plays this season for the team-friendly salary of $2.2 million, he is not guaranteed a multi-year deal upon qualifying for free agency at the end of the season. As they did with Cassel, the Pats could place the franchise tag on him and secure him to a one-year deal. In that instance, Wilfork ends up with nothing even close to the $100 million contract the Washington Redskins recently bestowed upon defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth, whose deal also includes about $48 million in guaranteed money.

That is why, for the Patriots and Wilfork both, the Haynesworth deal changed everything.

Let’s be clear here. Nobody is criticizing the Patriots for their way of doing business -- it works. As an evaluator, administrator, and coach, Belichick has proven he is the most important part of the operation. The Pats haven’t had a losing season in this millennium. The Patriots drafted former BC defensive tackle Ron Brace with one of their first selections in the April draft. As has most often been the case -- Samuel looks like the one exception -- the Pats appear to be one step ahead in the game that is played off the field.

Wilfork? He is a talented, likable man with a colorful personality. Between the lines and in the community, he has been a valuable asset to New England. But Wilfork has his Super Bowl ring and he has his own family, and no one can begrudge him for making selfish decisions at an important point of his career. In New England, especially, there comes a point where the paths of the player and the organization diverge, and Wilfork certainly appears to be at that point.

He’s probably gone, folks.

Prepare for that reality now.

After all, that’s something Bill Belichick began doing long ago.

FOXBOROUGH --The question concerned the departure of former offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, but the way Tom Brady answered it, one could not help but wonder if the words are scrawled on the training room wall as a constant reminder. People come and people go. And at Gillette Stadium as much as any place in sports, the machine keeps running.

"It doesn’t stop for anyone around here," Brady said this afternoon following an organized team activity. "You leave and someone else takes your place."

Advice for Vince Wilfork, perhaps? That is a possibility, certainly, but we all know the significance of Brady's comment goes well beyond that. Minus the greatest quarterback in franchise history and behind a replacement who had not started a game since high school, the Patriots went 11-5 last season and missed the playoffs largely as the result of a statistical aberration. Life went on without Tom Brady as assuredly as it went on without Deion Branch, and it will go on without Wilfork, too, whether he is truly AWOL from these OTAs or whether he is making, you know, a statement.

While Brady was present and accounted for during the media portion of today’s workout at Gillette Stadium, Wilfork, the behemoth defensive tackle, was not. The contrast was impossible to ignore. Just as one cornerstone of the Patriots is returning to work following a season-ending and perspective-altering injury, another is engaged in a potential contract dispute. (Within the castle walls on Route 1, the truth is often difficult to decipher.) Regardless, the Patriots were preparing for another run at the Super Bowl, regardless of whether Wilfork, Ron Brace, or Mike Wright is in the middle of the defensive line come September.

In Foxborough more than anyplace on earth, that is simply how things work. In fact, this entire Patriots reign was built on the same philosophy. Drew Bledsoe went out and Brady stepped in, and football in New England has not been the same since. If Brady was not aware before last September that he was susceptible to the same laws that elevated him to such a lofty status in American culture, he certainly knows it now.

"The reality in this sport is that any day can be your last day in football," Brady said rather succinctly.

In some cases, the only question is how much of your undoing you are responsible for.

In Brady’s case, what he lost last September was not his fault. Nonetheless, in the long term, he might be well served to have had something taken from him. As much as we all strive for success, it can breed complacency, particularly when any kind of maturity is taking place. Some things just do not seem as important to us anymore, which is why many wondered whether marriage and fatherhood might steal some of the intensity from, say, Tiger Woods.

In some ways, Brady is indeed the Tiger of his trade: He has more titles than any active NFL quarterback and a wife with supermodel looks. (In Brady’s case, she is actually a supermodel.) Brady has GQ looks and a multimillion-dollar smile, like Tiger, and he has reached such status as Mr. Bundchen that he spends nearly as much time on the gossip pages as he does in the pocket.

Last fall, when Brady’s knee folded like a portable crib, the ratio got thrown out of whack. Brady effectively became Giselle’s beau, full-time, and maybe it was a price worth paying if he recognized that such an existence was not enough for him.

"I think I’m a happier person when I’m working," Brady said today. He added, "I’m grateful to be out here. To be able to come out here and play is what I’ve wanted my whole life. I’ve been able to do that for nine years now and I’m coming out for a 10th."

Meanwhile, wherever he is, Wilfork is entering the final year of his contract following a draft in which the Patriots selected another nose tackle, Brace, with the longer term in mind. As it was with Wilfork and Ted Washington several years ago, so it appears now with Brace and Wilfork. You leave and someone else takes your place. For the Patriots of 2009, the question concerns just how far Wilfork might be willing to go, whether he is willing to miss training camp and the regular season, or whether this is all merely some half-hearted attempt at leveraging an organization that historically has not responded to such tactics.

In the worst case, assuming that Wilfork is digging in his heels, the Pro Bowl nose tackle of the Patriots is likely to learn just how much football means to him in the coming weeks and months.

As for the quarterback of the Patriots, no one needs to tell him that.

FOXBOROUGH -- Just once, wouldn’t you just love to be in the room? Wouldn’t you love to hear Bill Belichick explain why he values one player over another? Wouldn’t you love to listen to the coach of the Patriots break down a potential draft pick, head to toe, and explain why he will succeed or fail?

Winner of three Super Bowls and arguably the greatest coach in NFL history, Belichick conducted his pre-NFL Draft press conference at Gillette Stadium today in anticipation of this weekend’s festivities. Unsurprisingly, he spoke mostly in clichés. Belichick has much better things to do than enlighten the world on his detailed concepts of team-building, particularly in an ever-competitive sports world where every player counts.

When it comes to assessing football talent, after all, Belichick is as good as anyone.

"I just think it’s one big evaluation process. I don’t think you can neglect any aspect of it," Belichick said, speaking of draft preparation in general. "What’s really important is how we value the player, not how somebody else values him or what some other [rating] is on him, or what round somebody else thinks he can go in him. What’s more important for us is what we think he’ll do for our football team if he’s here. That’s really where the emphasis is."

Translation: I don’t really give a darn what anybody else thinks -- and I’m not talking about you know-nothings in the media. There are lots of people in other organizations who don’t know what the heck they’re doing, either, so I couldn’t care less where a player is projected to go.

Say this for Belichick: the man is nothing if not confident. When it comes to football, he operates with a level of self-assuredness that we should all strive for professionally. As much as anything else, he is decisive. Belichick knows what he believes and he believes what he knows, and that kind of conviction is what everyone looks for in a leader.

At the moment, the Patriots hold four of the first 58 picks in this weekend’s draft and six of the first 97. The Patriots have an obvious need at linebacker, and they could probably use depth on the lines and in the secondary. Belichick takes great pride at being unpredictable in every phase of his job -- this is called setting the agenda -- and he is indisputably proactive when most everyone else is reactive.

In the end, there is no point in predicting what Belichick will do this weekend because the coach rarely leaves footprints. (If he does, it is usually by design.) There is no more inexact science in any sport than the challenge of evaluating young talent, something Belichick freely admits.

"I think the whole process, it’s a lot harder than evaluating pro personnel," Belichick admitted. "Pro players, you can see them play against the teams we need to play against -- the same players, the same scheme -- and you can see it over a pretty decent length of time.

"You’ve got a lot of variables [with college players]: position, scheme, the player’s workload, physical development … all those things lead to a lot of guesstimates. And then you put 'em into a professional program, which is a lot different than a college program. You start talking about a lot more time, a lot more money, a different schedule, different demands. Some kids respond differently to that. How they’ll actually do when they get in there [and play], you don’t know until they actually get in there."

And even then, there is the oft-forgotten art of developing a player, which can take varying lengths of time. Three seasons ago, Belichick was quick to point out that there was a time when many observers thought defensive lineman Ty Warren was slow to develop. Now Warren is a Patriots stalwart. Meanwhile, running back Laurence Maroney looked positively dynamic during parts of his rookie season only to make little or no progress since. Some might argue that Maroney has even regressed.

Asked today if there was anyone he regarded as a "can’t-miss" player only to see him fail, Belichick all but scoffed at the question.

Well, duh.

"We’ve drafted players here high that aren’t with the team anymore. Obviously we took 'em thinking that they would have better careers than what they had with us," Belichick said. "I mean, you know the list as well as I do."

Chad Jackson, anyone?

All of this brings us back to the skill of what Belichick repeatedly referred to as "team-building," of which the draft is just a part. In the NFL, free agency now plays a bigger role than perhaps ever before. As badly as the Pats whiffed on Jackson, a second-round pick out of Florida in 2006, they replaced him the following spring with trades for Randy Moss and Wes Welker. In the first of those years, the Pats reached the AFC Championship Game; in the second, they took an 18-0 record into Super Bowl Sunday.

Ultimately, the NFL offseason is about filling holes -- through trades, the draft or free agency -- and Belichick has proven highly skilled at evaluating players and putting them in positions to succeed.

In this day and age, isn’t that really what coaching is?

"To me, the final measuring stick is, 'What’s your record? How did you do in October, November and December?' " Belichick said. "Those are the grades that matter -- how many points you got at the end of the game and how many points they got. With all due respect to all you guys who are going to be giving us grades [on draft day], you don’t get any points with that. You get points for winning games."

Draft today, play tomorrow.

But no matter what happens this weekend, we bet the Pats will be winning games in October, November and December.

Matt Cassel and Jay Cutler are both 20-something quarterbacks who were recently traded, but the comparison pretty much ends there. They differ in skills. They differ in experience. And most important, they differ in contracts.

Yesterday’s trade that sent Cutler from the Denver Broncos to the Chicago Bears undoubtedly inspired many to reassess last month’s deal that sent Cassel from the Patriots to the Kansas City Chiefs. The Broncos got a hell of a lot more than the Patriots did. The Patriots gave up Cassel and linebacker Mike Vrabel for an early second-round pick (34th overall) in this year’s draft. The Broncos got a first-round pick this year (No. 18 overall), a third-round pick this year (No. 84 overall), and a first-round pick next year (no worse than No. 32) in exchange for Cutler and a fifth-round pick this year.

Oh, and the Broncos also got serviceable Kyle Orton, who might very well be their starting quarterback.

At this stage, we should agree on one thing: The Patriots don’t appear to have gotten maximum value for Cassel, a player who was one of the best stories in the NFL this year. At the same time, and at the risk of sounding like one of the many Belichicklets who deem it sacrilegious to view Bill Belichick’s decisions with an even slightly critical eye, there is so much more to the story.

For starters, inside the sports world or out, most every comparison is incongruous. We should start to wonder why we ever make such analogies at all. Decisions are best made on a case-by-case basis for the simple fact that things change. In this day and age, the world isn’t the same now as it was 10 minutes ago -- let alone 10 days or 10 weeks -- and there are countless factors to be weighed differently at different points in time.

But for whatever reason, we fear setting a precedent. We fear that the past will influence the future as if we have no bearing on its outcome.

In retrospect, did anyone in New England truly understand the franchise rule at all? From the very beginning of this process, the Patriots had very little leverage because Cassel was set to become an unrestricted free agent early this year. That Tom Brady went down with an injury, thereby opening a door for Cassel, was an enormous stroke of good fortune for the player, whose value on the open market increased every time he threw another touchdown pass. The better Cassel played, the more he had to gain -- and the more the Patriots had to lose.

Once Cassel became a commodity, the Patriots had two choices. They could let him walk and get nothing in return, or they could get whatever they could for someone who no longer would fit into their budget. They chose the latter. Their hope was that Cassel would cooperate with regard to a long-term contract, thereby increasing his value to both an acquiring team and the Patriots both.

Shrewdly, and undoubtedly at the suggestion of agent David Dunn -- regarded by some as the Scott Boras of his industry -- Cassel focused on what was best for him. Why should he help the Patriots? Why should he help anyone else? By accepting the franchise tag, Cassel assured himself of a guaranteed $14.6 million for one year. If he wants to go back out on the market after the 2009 season, he can, all before a 2010 campaign in which there may be no salary cap at all. Signing the franchise tender meant that Cassel could win now and later, and it might even allow him some choice as to where he gets to play.

For the Patriots, Cassel’s willingness to take the money was not a worst-case scenario. For them, a worst-case scenario would have been losing him for nothing at all. The obvious problem was that the Patriots now had a backup quarterback on a one-year contract for absurd dollars, and everyone knew they had to unload him. Free agency was beginning and the Patriots had much of their money tied up in a backup quarterback, which is like going to a clearance sale with your money locked up in a CD.

So the Pats liquidated, paying a penalty that was less than the interest already accrued. In their minds, they still made out on the deal. They were going to lose Cassel for nothing and they got the 34th pick instead.

Now, with regard to whether the Patriots might have gotten more for Cassel, that is a legitimate argument, but one that is not so simple. Within two weeks of trading Cassel to the Chiefs, the Patriots officially retained or acquired Chris Baker, Russ Hochstein, James Sanders, Shawn Springs, and Leigh Bodden, among others. (Fred Taylor officially was signed the day before the Cassel deal). Those players cost somewhere in the range of $14.5 million, which just happens to be the approximate value of Cassel’s 2009 cap number.

Yes, Vrabel’s money went in the deal, too. Yes, the Pats now have a seemingly glaring hole at linebacker. But they also added Greg Lewis and Joey Galloway at wide receiver, and they now have six of the first 97 picks in the draft thanks to the addition of compensatory selections driven largely by Asante Samuel’s departure.

Amid of all of this, Cutler was in the middle of a six-year deal worth roughly $48 million with the Denver Broncos, though much of that money was non-guaranteed. At the moment, Cutler still has three years left on his deal. His salary cap number for 2009 is reported to be slightly more than $1 million, which is roughly one-fourteenth of what the Chiefs must account for in Cassel. And the Patriots have already made it clear that the remaining $13 million can go a long way toward addressing other needs.

On top of all that, Cutler is signed through the 2011 season at similar cap numbers, meaning the Bears can get three seasons from Cutler for less than it will cost the Chiefs for one year of Cassel, though Cutler’s deal does include some sizable roster bonuses in the final years of the deal.

As for the theory that Cutler will now try to renegotiate, would that really be in his best interest after making such a childish stink about the way he was treated in Denver? Cutler claimed that he could never trust his coach in Denver, Josh McDaniels, who is suddenly swimming upstream. What is Cutler going to do now, hold out for more money from the Bears?

Again, there is every probability here that the Patriots got happy feet and unloaded Cassel earlier than they wanted to because he was tying their hands financially. By all accounts, it certainly seems as if New England overestimated Cassel’s value to other clubs, particularly when Vrabel also went in the deal. Pats fans who defended Belichick for insisting on veterans at the linebacker position cannot possibly defend him now for casting off Vrabel, especially if Vrabel’s replacement comes from the draft.

But to suggest that the Pats got robbed on Matt Cassel because the Broncos got more for Jay Cutler?

Please.

All things considered, the two had almost nothing to do with each other.

What this all goes back to, really, is that devastating night in the desert, Super Bowl XLII, the Patriots’ equivalent of the day the music died.

Thirteen months after the dream of an unbeaten season ended with a nightmare, the franchise appears to be rearming again. And it is operating as if it has unfinished business.

So here we are, still more than one month before the annual NFL Draft, and the pieces seem to be coming together like another one of Bill Belichick’s impeccable game plans. Tom Brady’s knee begot Matt Cassel, who begot the No. 34 pick, which very well might beget Julius Peppers. Isn’t that how it is all supposed to work out now? According to a report yesterday on NFL.com, Belichick may be nearing a deal with the Carolina Panthers that would bring Peppers, a freakishly athletic pass rusher, to New England for the No. 34 overall pick -- the same selection acquired last month in the deal that sent Cassel and Mike Vrabel to the Kansas City Chiefs.

So there you have it. To fill the one glaring hole remaining on the roster, Belichick seems positioned to deal the 230th overall pick in 2005 (Cassel) for the second overall pick in 2002 (Peppers).

At the moment, we should all note that Peppers is still unclaimed property at this point and has yet to sign the franchise tender placed on him by the Panthers earlier this offseason. There is still a lot that must happen, and there is still the chance Peppers ends up somewhere other than New England. And yet, the mind cannot help but race to examine the possibilities:

• If these dominoes fall the way we all now hope them to -- expect them to? -- there is no doubt about what this means for the Patriots: They will be loaded again. Brady will have a cast of wide receivers that will include Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Joey Galloway, and Greg Lewis. The backfield will feature Sammy Morris, Fred Taylor, Laurence Maroney, and Kevin Faulk. Belichick will have prime-of-career former Pro Bowlers on both sides of the line and a revamped secondary, and now he could have a delicious linebacking corps of Adalius Thomas dressed with Peppers and (Jerod) Mayo.

  Bartender, we’ll have Bruschis all around.

• Now comes the silly part. Should they complete the Peppers deal, the Pats still would have three of the first 58 picks in the draft at Nos. 23, 47 and 58, choices Belichick might use, presumably, on a linebacker and two linemen (one offense, one defense), though not necessarily in that order. By then, the Patriots might have orchestrated one of the great offseasons in sports history, their personal best since, say, the surgical 2007 enhancement that produced Thomas, Moss, Welker and Brandon Meriweather.
• In the long term, don’t underestimate the Patriots' need on the lines. Richard Seymour could be elsewhere after the season and the Pats still have the task of signing nose tackle Vince Wilfork, which might be further complicated by a Peppers acquisition. Re-signing versatile Russ Hochstein gives the Pats some depth, but right tackle has been an unstable position and right guard Stephen Neal has been hurt a lot. Also, we don’t need to be reminded of what happened to the Pats’ vaunted left side against the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII.
• If the Pats can pull off the Peppers deal, Belichick will be vindicated for his decision to sacrifice Vrabel in the Cassel deal and should be lauded for taking a heretofore shrewd approach to the offseason. Taylor, Galloway, Lewis, tight end Chris Baker, and defensive backs Leigh Bodden and Shawn Springs were relatively inexpensive pickups that addressed specific needs and gave the Pats tremendous depth, something Belichick considers imperative given the typical attrition over the course of 16 games.
• If the Pats don’t get Peppers -- and Adam Schefter of the NFL Network said this morning he thinks they will not, contradicting yesterday's report by colleague Vic Carucci -- they can still go out and make a run at someone like, say, free agent Jason Taylor, recently released by the Washington Redskins. They also could keep the 34th pick and draft another linebacker.
• For all of the heat the Pats have been getting in the wake of the decision to include Vrabel in the Cassel trade, they’re still faring better than new Denver Broncos coach and former Pats offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who finds himself in a firestorm he may not be able to put out. Angered by McDaniels’s interest in Cassel, petulant quarterback Jay Cutler now is undermining the new coach's authority by failing to report to offseason workouts. If McDaniels learned anything from his mentor, he’ll chop the legs off his quarterback and send him off in parts, thereby grabbing his team by the collar and letting the Broncos know who’s boss.
• Carucci’s original report of the Peppers deal on NFL.com indicated that the Panthers preferred a second-round pick over a first-round selection because of the need for cost efficiency. (A first-round pick would require a greater financial commitment and, thus, greater risk.) Of course, this has been a longtime belief of the Patriots, who seem to have revolutionized the art of drafting and corresponding salary cap management in the NFL the way that Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane did -- at least for a time -- in baseball.

  But remember: The last three times the Patriots picked in the top half of the first round, they got Jerod Mayo (No. 10 last year), Ty Warren (No. 13 in 2003), and Richard Seymour (No. 6 in 2001).

• Like the Red Sox’ offseason acquisitions, many Patriots pickups seem to come with a considerable injury history. Fred Taylor, Springs, and Galloway all have had problems recently, and the Pats already have some durability/health concerns with Thomas, Maroney, Neal, Ben Watson and, of course, Brady. Injuries are a part of life in the NFL, as we all know, but one of the underrated aspects of a player like Vrabel is that he was almost always on the field.
• Amazing what the addition of someone like Peppers could do to help quell concerns about the secondary, eh? The Bodden and Springs signings aside, we all know how much Belichick believes in building the front seven of his defense, a strategy further supported by other examples. Again, we look no further than Super Bowl XLII, where a seemingly suspect Giants secondary became infinitely better thanks to the sterling play of the team’s front seven, particularly on the defensive line.
• By the way, Peppers just turned 29, making him four-and-a-half years younger than Vrabel, who actually will turn 34 in August. Peppers will not turn 30 until Jan. 18, the day after the NFL divisional playoffs and at the start of the week leading up to the conference championship games.

  Any bets on which of the two will still be playing?

Injuries, injuries, injuries. They’ve been piling up around here like recycled newspapers. From Dustin Pedroia’s abdominal strain to Julio Lugo’s knee to Glen Davis’s ankle to Tony Allen’s thumb, Boston's athletes have a list of ailments that looks like Evil Knievel’s medical history.

Let’s review the anatomical diagram, from head to toe, beginning with . . .

• Scalabrine’s head and neck, heretofore known as Scal-e-osis, not to be confused with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. Injured in a 114-76 win at Denver on Feb. 23, Scalabrine has not played since and is not expected back until April. Diagnosis can be difficult because, quite frankly, Scalabrine was a little loopy to begin with.
• John Smoltz’s shoulder. A member of the Atlanta Braves for two decades, the classy righthander is trying to come back from shoulder surgery. He is out until late May or early June, largely as a precautionary measure so that he can be ready to pitch at the end of the year. In a best-case scenario of Smoltz shoulder, all symptoms generally are expected to subside by late summer, leading to a healthy autumn (assuming the Red Sox get there).
• Brad Penny’s shoulder, otherwise known as Acute A-Penny-itis, which can result (but not always) from a general muscle weakness relating to insufficient conditioning. Penny seems a good bet to open the season on the disabled list given that he has yet to pitch in a spring game. Somewhere, Larry Bowa is snickering.
• David Ortiz’s shoulder, wrist and mind, a combination of physical and psychological concerns that fall under the classification of general David-ia. Hampered by a torn tendon sheath in his wrist last season, Ortiz also developed a sore shoulder early this spring from, of all things, throwing. Yet, in the absence of Manny Ramirez, the greater concern is his mental health, particularly as he pined for lineup help during his inaugural spring training address. He is nonetheless expected to be ready for the season.
• Stephane Yelle’s undisclosed ailment, otherwise known as the Yelle Fever, somewhat similar to the Hellenic Flu in that the cause or severity of the injury is unknown. Yelle has seven goals, 11 assists and a plus-9 rating this season for the Bruins. He has been out since March 4.

Laurence Maroney’s body. Though Maroney was placed on injured reserve with a shoulder injury last season, a succession of ailments throughout his career leaves his entire body in doubt. This condition, known as Walking Maron-ia, results in an extreme shortage of confidence on the part of personnel directors and/or coaches. Hence, Fred Taylor is now a Patriot. Long-term prognosis: unclear.

• Dustin Pedroia’s abdomen. The starting second baseman for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, Pedroia unexpectedly rejoined the Red Sox over the weekend with a slight abdominal strain categorized as a minor ventral problem or MVP. (Ventral: "near, or on the belly.’’) Often confused with an oblique strain that sideline athletes for weeks, the MVP shouldn’t keep Pedroia out for more than a few days. You can exhale now.
• Tony Allen’s thumb. Otherwise known as Green thumb, the problem generally consists of ligament damage requiring surgery. In Allen’s case, his availability for the postseason is in question, leading to varying degrees of concern about his potential loss. Despite popular belief, Green thumb cannot be blamed for erratic jump-shooting tendencies beyond, say, 12 feet.
• Mike Lowell’s hip. After undergoing surgery last fall to repair a torn labrum, Lowell has returned to the field recently, though he still seems to moving somewhat gingerly. Given the central location of the hip, the player has been diagnosed with Inflammation of the Lowell connector, which frequently can result in stagnancy or "traffic’’ through the middle of the body. Long-term prognosis: Unknown.



• J.D. Drew’s back, a potentially chronic condition that can leave doctors and team officials mystified. Sometimes referred to as J.D.D. given Drew’s dorsal issues, the problem can crop up an anytime -- and usually does. Problems can persist for hours or months depending on the severity of the issue and time of season.
• Mark Kotsay’s back, a problem, in this case, expected to keep Kotsay off the active roster until approximately May 1. An issue that can arise without any warning and require an abrupt change in plan -- hence the popular term Skid Marks Disease -- Kotsay’s ailment inspired the Red Sox to sign Brad Wilkerson, who is expected to open the season as Kotsay’s replacement on the 25-man roster.
• Julio Lugo’s knee, believed to be a tear of the cartilage or "meniscus,’’ is generally as a relatively minor ailment that should sideline the player for roughly a month. Though Lugo could be out until the middle or end of April pending the results of an arthroscopic procedure tomorrow, Red Sox officials seemed relieved that there was no ligament -- or, in this case, Lugo-ment -- damage.
• Tom Brady’s knee. In this region, no other injury has received coverage so intense, and for good reason. Brady tore both the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and medial collateral ligament (MCL) in last year’s season opener, though all indications are that he will be ready for 2009. The good news? He has a new stable of receives that includes Joey Galloway and Greg Lewis. Besides, it’s not as if he ever ran like a Gisele.
• Kevin Garnett’s knee. Though technically a knee injury, this ailment -- commonly known as Ticket-itis -- can dramatically damage the backbone of any team. Just ask the Celtics, now just 6-6 since Feb. 19, the night Garnett was injured against Utah. The struggling Celtics expect him back later this week, perhaps against San Antonio, but his absence may have cost the Celtics home court advantage in the postseason. (Translation: Can lead to road rash.)
• Marco Sturm’s knee. In the case of the Bruins, Sturm’s injury was a season-ender that stripped the B’s of one their better sets of legs. Playfully named Marco’s polio by one longtime doctor, Sturm’s ailment only re-opened emotional scars resulting from the trade that brought him to Boston, a connection of the physical and psychological that some experts refer to as Thornton’s Law.
• Rajon Rondo’s ankle. Though Rondo returned to the lineup Friday, he played poorly (five turnovers) against Milwaukee yesterday. Celtics officials clearly felt that Rondo had recovered sufficiently from a sprained ankle to return to the court over the weekend, but the effects of his injury -- sometimes referred to as Rondoids -- still seem present. Prognosis: Good.
• Glen Davis’s ankle. The big forward, who has helped fill in for Garnett, sprained his ankle in a loss against Orlando March 8. There has been some speculation that such ankle injuries can prompt a spontaneous outbreak of tears, though most believe that Davis’s emotional outbreak resulted more from ostracism. Said one fictional specialist: "Nobody puts Baby in a corner.’’
• Eddie House’s ankle and heel. Injured in yesterday’s loss to Milwaukee, House is optimistic he will return to the court quickly. Nonetheless, the Celtics seem to be suffering an alarming number of limb and extremity injuries after playing into the middle of June last year, leading some to foolishly speculate that the team is suffering from the well-known hand-and-foot-in-mouth disease that has plagued, among others, wide receiver Terrell Owens.

All of this leads to one question:

Other than Glenn Rivers, is there a Doc in the house?

At this stage, it is helpful to remember that there are nearly eight weeks to go until the NFL Draft. The Patriots now have money to spend. Bill Belichick is a peerless evaluator and the Patriots generally have excelled at managing the salary cap.

Nonetheless, one cannot help but wonder if the Patriots did themselves more harm than good when they used the franchise tag on Matt Cassel.

Ending weeks of speculation that began during the final stages of the 2008 regular season, the Patriots on Saturday traded Cassel and linebacker Mike Vrabel to the Kansas City Chiefs for a second-round pick (34th overall) in next month's draft. Just like that, Cassel's meteoric rise in New England crashed to a halt. After all that debate and all that posturing, the Patriots seemed to give up more than they received, unloading the same Cassel contract they saddled themselves with in the first place.

Fine. So Cassel is gone, though one way or the other, we knew that probably was going to happen. The ultimate question here is whether the Patriots got the best possible deal, which raises a succession of questions.

The moment the Patriots franchised Cassel last month, they committed to paying him $14.65 million for the 2009 season, a proposition Cassel was all too eager to accept. From that moment forward, the Patriots had a commodity they had to deal because everyone and his long snapper knew they couldn't pay two frontline quarterbacks. No Boston-based organization has painted itself into a corner like that since former Sox general manager Lou Gorman had Lee Smith and Jeff Reardon sharing space in the same bullpen.

So what did the other 31 NFL teams do? They waited. They let the Patriots tie up their money, if only for a relatively short period of time. The Minnesota Vikings elected to give up a fourth-round pick for Sage Rosenfels, whom they then signed to a two-year, $9 million contract that includes only $5 million in guarantees. And then everyone from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the Detroit Lions to the Kansas City Chiefs resisted giving up too much for a quarterback who was grossly overpaid and who could just as easily be the next Scott Mitchell as the next Steve Young.

Don't take that as a swipe at Cassel, it isn't. Good for him. The Patriots used a flawed NFL system to declare their backup quarterback as their franchise player -- can we all admit that the franchise tag should be abolished or, at the very least, redefined? -- leading Cassel and agent David Dunn to call the team's bluff. When the market for Cassel wasn't quite what the Patriots envisioned, New England had to add Mike Vrabel to a deal that earned the club the 34th selection in the draft.

Now, had Cassell merely been allowed to walk following the season, the Patriots might very well have ended up with a compensatory pick between the third and fourth rounds, albeit in 2010. That pick likely would have been in the top 100, no better than No. 97. In that scenario, the Patriots might still have retained Vrabel, whose departure creates another hole in a defense that had trouble getting off the field all year long.

Obviously, the inclusion of Vrabel in the package is what throws the whole picture out of whack. On some level, we all agree that Vrabel slipped some last season, his sack total dipping from 12 1/2 (in 2007) to four (in 2008). He just wasn't the same playmaker. At the same time, the Patriots currently appear to have no real replacements in line, unless they plan to use one of their first four selections in the draft -- they now have Nos. 23, 34, 47 and 58 -- to pick a linebacker who would join Jerod Mayo, Adalius Thomas, Tedy Bruschi and the rest.

And if that's the case, we have to ask: What happened to the theory that the New England defensive system is too complex for young linebackers to process? Has that now changed because the Patriots are more desperate? Or is it possible that they foolishly neglected an aging linebacking corps before last spring, when they plucked Mayo in the first round?

One way or another, the Patriots got themselves into this situation, whether the mistake came within the last few days or last few years.

Let's take pause here. If the Patriots turn around and add Julius Peppers or Ray Lewis to their defense in the coming days, we all will feel differently about this. Part of the problem is that we have no idea what Belichick is thinking, which is precisely the way the coach likes it. For the Patriots, moments like this are where their approach to public relations is costly because they provide little information with regard to their thought process.

So, we're all left to guess and assume, and we know what that leads to.

Not long after the Cassel deal was completed, news began emerging from other markets that the Patriots might have had better deals on the table. Tampa Bay reportedly was prepared to deal its first-round pick (No. 19 overall) to Denver for Jay Cutler; the Broncos then would have sent No. 19 to the Patriots for Cassel. Another scenario had the Detroit Lions willing to deal their second-round choice (No. 33 overall) for Cassel, and either keeping him or dealing him to the Bucs as part of a three-team deal.

In either scenario, the Patriots would have received more for Cassel.

And they would have kept Vrabel, whom they could have cut if his salary was an issue (though they would have still taken a bit of a cap hit).

Whatever the case, this much is clear: when the Patriots used the franchise tag on Cassel, they rolled the dice. As it turned out, Cassel became harder to deal than they imagined. Ultimately, in order to move Cassel, the Patriots had to give up Vrabel, too, even if they did end up with a 34th overall selection that should be of benefit to them in the long term more than the short.

By that point, it certainly seems that trading Cassel was less about acquiring assets than it was about mitigating losses.

One way or another, this all comes back to Matt Cassel. The Patriots have needs. They have big money tied up in a backup quarterback. And now they have dealt away a longtime Bill Belichick loyalist to create an even bigger hole on what was already a suspect defense.

As usual, the NFL free agent season hit the ground with a bang today, leaving a canyon-sized crater that only leads to more questions. Exactly what are the Patriots up to anyway? Fred Taylor (signed) and Chris Baker (close to signing) are heading to New England. Lonie Paxton and Jabar Gaffney are off to Denver and Mike Vrabel is a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. The Patriots appear to have at least one too few linebackers and one too many quarterbacks, and they have a secondary that is of primary concern.

Meanwhile, Cassel and his $14.6 million salary are waiting quietly in the shadow of Mr. Gisele Bundchen.

Say this for Belichick: He puts his football team first. He always has and he always will. Short of Brady, there may be no member of the Patriots who has been more of a Belichick guy than Vrabel, who effectively served as an extension of the coach in the Patriots locker room. Now Vrabel and his four sacks are off to Kansas City, and the writing is on the wall at the Patriot Place that Vrabel helped build. (Just ask him.)

No one is indispensable.

Surprised? Don't be. In this day and age when sports are driven by business decisions, the Patriots have proven they can make the tough choices. You should be surprised at nothing they do. Two years ago, Vrabel had a team-leading 12 1/2 sacks during a season in which the Pats got to the quarterback more times (47) than any team but the New York Giants (53). Last year, Vrabel's sack total dropped by nearly 70 percent and the Pats were in the middle of the pack (14th) in sacks. Add in a Patriots secondary that couldn't cover a tab at the local watering hole and what you had was a defense that ranked 26th in the NFL in third-down efficiency. In New England, this was the closest thing we've ever seen to the chuck and duck.

Now, the obvious question: Where are the Patriots going from here? Does Belichick have his eyes on Julius Peppers, who longs to play outside in a 3-4 defense? Does he have visions of Peppers and Adalius Thomas being a modern day version of Andre Tippett and Don Blackmon? Or are the Patriots focused on the draft, on rebuilding an aging defense from the ground up around the promising Jerod Mayo?

This brings us back to Cassel, who remains the single greatest asset the Patriots possess during this unstable phase of the NFL calendar. We just don't know what they intend to do with him. There is every possibility that the Patriots are merely freeing up more money -- moving Vrabel saves them between $3.3 million and $4.3 million on the cap, depending on how you look at it -- so they can keep Cassel on their roster, though that would suggest the Pats painted themselves into a corner by franchising the quarterback in the first place.

The more likely scenario, of course, is that Cassel is soon going somewhere for someone or something, perhaps even to Kansas City as part of the Vrabel deal (the full details of which have yet to emerge). In any case, the Patriots in return for Cassel are likely to get a piece that allows Belichick to rebuild his defense.

At the moment, here is what we know: the Patriots have more cap space than they did only a few hours ago and Cassel is still with the team. The Pats have needs at linebacker and in the secondary, and the future of their stalwart defensive line is further clouded by the deal the Redskins gave defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth (7 years, $100 million) and the fact that both Vince Wilfork and Richard Seymour are approaching the end of their contracts. The Patriots suddenly have a lot of moving parts in an offseason that looks to be as eventful as that of two years ago, when Belichick signed Thomas while trading for both Wes Welker and Randy Moss.

In Foxborough at the moment, the gears are indeed in motion.

Presumably, all that wheeling will lead to another deal.

What do you think? Is this Vrabel deal just a part of a bigger strategy? And what will the Patriot do with Matt Cassel? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

In the comparison of dynasties, for lack of a better word, there is no trophy presentation and no parade. There is no right answer. There is only subjectivity, purely for the sake of argument.

But at this stage, isn’t it time to wonder if the Pittsburgh Steelers have supplanted the Patriots as the elite franchise in the NFL?

With their 27-23 victory over the Arizona Cardinals in scintillating Super Bowl XLIII Sunday night, the Steelers now have two titles in the last four years. The Patriots have none. Pittsburgh has a playmaking quarterback, a bright young coach and a suffocating defense under one of the most respected ownerships in league history. There is no reason to think any of that will change in the immediate future.

Like it or not, that makes the Steelers the new team to beat.

Before the most loyal New Englanders flip their lids over something that is, in the end, trivial, let’s at least try to be honest with ourselves. In the NFL, success is measured in Lombardi Trophies. Like hotel and movie ratings, the more symbols the better. The Steelers now have six Lombardi icons next to their team name, more than any franchise in league history. In the short term and the long, no team has had a greater run of success.

Now, if you want to start having arguments about the team of the decade, that is a different matter.

But at this precise moment in time, using the last four years as a sample size, the Steelers do not merely have a leg up on the league.

They have two.

The regular season? Please. Let’s not resort to such deceptive tactics in an attempt to claim the Patriots' superiority. Since the Patriots’ last championship -- secured with a 24-21 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles Feb. 6, 2005 -- they are a sterling 49-15 in the regular season. That might mean something in an argument concerning the Steelers were it not for the fact that Indianapolis Colts have the Patriots beat on two fronts (51-13, one Super Bowl title in that stretch). By contrast, the Steelers are a relatively understated 41-23, though they own those two Lombardis.

Let’s look at this another way: Using the same time frame -- four years -- the New York Yankees won more games than any team in baseball from 2004-07, posting an aggregate mark of 387-261, 12 games better than the Red Sox (375-273). The Red Sox claimed two World Series titles to the Yankees’ none, however, leading to the suggestion that the Sox were the dynasty in the making.

Here in New England, who in their right minds would suggest that the Yankees of 2004-07 were more successful than the Sox? Who would even hint at it? The bottom line is that the Red Sox won titles (plural) and the Yankees won nothing, and there are certain markets in professional sports (like this one) where all that matters are the championships.

Does that mean the Patriots had a bad year? No, no, no. Quite the contrary. Minus Tom Brady, the 2008 Patriots went 11-5 thanks largely to the emergence of Matt Cassel and the continued mastery of Bill Belichick. Given the Pats’ issues this year, particularly in the secondary, it is a wonder they did so well. We can wonder all we want about how Pats might have fared in the postseason, but this fact remains inarguable:

In their only meeting with the Steelers in this recently completed NFL season -- at home, in a nationally televised affair on Sunday -- the Pats got vaporized by a 33-10 score. A New England offense that had managed 1,041 yards in the preceding two weeks managed just 267 against the Steelers, who forced five turnovers and sacked Cassel five times while holding him to 19 of 39 passing.

Minus that game, in the seven remaining contests over the final half of the season, Cassel had 14 touchdown passes and just two interceptions while going 153 of 246, a completion rate of 62.2 percent.

So, in retrospect, did the Patriots offense really peak in December?

Or did the Pats just get shut down by the Steelers on the final day of November?

With regard to Brady’s absence, we all understand the magnitude. We also know that injuries are part of the game. The Steelers similarly could make every argument that their momentum was derailed by quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s motorcycle accident following Pittsburgh’s Super Bowl win in 2006. The Steelers stumbled through an 8-8 season the next year and missed the playoffs, though they have since made the playoffs in each of the last two seasons, including this one.

Along the way, the Steelers have made decisions the way the Patriots have, shrewdly and devoid of emotional bias. In that way, the two organizations are probably more alike than many New Englanders would care to admit. In the last several years, the Steelers have said farewell to a group that includes Plaxico Burress, Joey Porter and Alan Faneca, among others. They have continued to win just the same. James Harrison was signed as an uindrafted free agent. Santonio Holmes was added through the draft.

In the end, what all of this means is that the Patriots have some work to do again, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Every so often, getting knocked down a peg can be a very productive experience. More often than not, it prods you to reevaluate and reassess, to recognize just how much needs to be invested in order to be successful. And if someone else happens to pass you by in the process, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing either.

After all, it never hurts to have something to shoot for.

The key question is whether Tom Brady’s knee and Matt Cassel’s future are impossibly intertwined, or whether someone out there merely wants us to believe so. The former would simplify things for everyone this offseason. The latter would make things infinitely more complicated.

Remember, in this increasingly complex age of professional sports, few things are ever easy.

And so the Patriots are bystanders as the NFL playoffs are set to begin, but do not be deceived. Over the next several weeks, there will be games played in Foxborough. Cassel could be headed for free agency soon unless the Patriots saddle him with the oxymoronic (or is it just moronic?) tag of franchise player, a label that would greatly increase Cassel’s short-term value while stripping him of his freedom of choice.

Here in New England, where we see all things through the eyes of the Patriots and their fans, the decision is simple: Franchise him. Trade him and get something in return. Do not let him walk away for nothing.

But what are Cassel’s rights and wants in this?

And why should they mean less?

Professional sports are a fascinating study in humanity because, as Jerry Seinfeld told us, it really is all about the laundry. At the end of the day, nobody here really cares about Brady, Cassel or Bill Belichick as much as we do about the men who are wearing the New England uniforms and colors at a particular moment. That’s our team out there. The difficulty comes from the fact that players, coaches and executives are human beings with mortal flaws, which is to say that they react emotionally and make decisions based on selfish wants and needs.

With regard to the Patriots and Cassel, things could get messy this offseason. The Patriots would be better served by getting something in return for Cassel (which means franchising him) and Cassel would be better served on the open market (where he can peddle his own services), paths that seem nothing if not divergent. What Cassel wants and what the Patriots want appear to be two very different things, and the sides could very well end up playing chicken with the future of the man who effectively saved the 2008 New England football season.

Already, the posturing seems to have started. Yesterday, amid the succession of events that landed the Miami Dolphins in the playoffs, respected NBCsports.com writer Tom Curran reported that Brady continues to experience knee problems that may threaten his 2009 campaign. The story was refuted by both The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, who similarly cited unnamed sources. In the end, all of this leads back to the situation involving the Patriots and Cassel, suggesting that the Patriots are holding the franchise tag over Cassel’s head in order to leverage him for a resolution that would serve everyone.

Or would it?

For starters, know this: If the Patriots franchise Cassel, he effectively would be tendered a 2009 contract at the average salary of the five highest-paid quarterbacks in football. (While that precise number will not be known until some time in February, one football agent recently estimated that the number will be $13 million-$14 million.) The Patriots must have that salary cap space available before implementing the franchise tag, and that space must exist so long as Cassel remained under their control. Additionally, any team then electing to sign Cassel would be required to forfeit two first-round draft picks, effectively destroying Cassel's options on the open market.

If and when the Patriots can then work out a trade for Cassel, the quarterback’s new team can negotiate a new contract -- at a more reasonable annual salary with more guaranteed, long-term money for the quarterback -- and compensate the Patriots with a draft choice (or choices). Cassel then comes off the Patriots’ books and New England has the ability to use the money elsewhere -- like, say, on defense -- having sacrificed only short-term cap flexibility in the process.

Here’s the problem: Cassel could blow the whole thing up by signing the franchise tender immediately upon receipt, locking him in for 2009 at the $13 million-$14 million. If that were to happen, any team trading for the quarterback then would be sacrificing young talent for a relatively inexperienced quarterback on a one-year, $13 million-$14 million deal. That would be the equivalent of, say, the Red Sox trading a young Justin Masterson and Lars Anderson for Matt Holliday while leaving Holliday with the option to depart via free agency after year, which of course seems like an awful lot to pay for a rental.

If you are Cassel, that leads to an obvious question. Why should you sacrifice the ability to peddle your own services when you could make as much as $14 million next year for doing next to nothing? With all the holes the Patriots have on defense, do they really want to pay a backup quarterback $14 million? Can any team reasonably afford to? The bottom line is that the Patriots need Cassel’s cooperation to franchise him and make a deal - unless, of course, they want to do something so bold as to trade Brady - and doing so would strip Cassel of his ability to play one team off another. The real benefactors in that scenario would be the Patriots, who could get a handsome package for a player they simply might have lost to free agency.

Over the years, remember, the Patriots have prided themselves on making difficult decisions based on the fact that business is business. It is a major reason they annually contend for championships. The issue now is that the Patriots need the help of the player and/or his agent to help them execute their latest master plan, and it’s hard to believe that anyone would work with the Pats purely out of the goodness of their hearts. The pendulum swings both ways, so to speak, and one could hardly blame agent David Dunn (who represents Cassel and represented Drew Bledsoe, among others) if he opted to play hardball with the Pats.

After all, if the Patriots use the franchise tag on Cassell, it would, in many ways, go against everything they have preached organizationally. Beyond serving as a leveraging tactic, franchising the player could prove to be downright foolish business. If Cassel accepted and was willing to stay on the roster for a year before trying his hand at free agency following the 2009 campaign -- admittedly, Cassel probably does not want this, but it is his trump card -- the Pats could end up committing between $25 million-$30 million on two quarterbacks, one of whom would be relegated to the sidelines.

The only way that makes any sense is if Brady is in truly dire straits, if his knee problem is so worrisome that the Pats believe he would not be able to play next year at all.

So what happens now? Excellent question. If they have not already, the Patriots undoubtedly will touch base with Dunn about Cassel’s prospects. The posturing will only intensify. The Pats will threaten to use the franchise tag and Cassel will threaten to sign the tender in what will be the ultimate game of poker. The worst-case scenario for both is that Brady is healthy and that Cassel ends up spending next season on the New England sideline.

But then, under those circumstances, the player would be cashing the organization’s checks for somewhere in the range of $14 million.

If you’re Matt Cassel, is that really such a bad option?

FOXBOROUGH -- In a league of never-ending story lines, the final chapter has brought us to this: Bill Belichick likely needs the help of Eric Mangini to get into the playoffs.

You can’t make this stuff up, and in the NFL, you clearly do not need to. It’s the Non-Fiction League. Everything is quite real. One team can thoroughly wipe out another, 47-7, and the loser is the one guaranteed a playoff spot despite one of the most disgraceful performances in the history of professional sports. The losing team's backup quarterback is a Heisman Trophy winner while the winning team's starter was his collegiate backup, offering further proof of Belichick’s longstanding theory that all that matters is the moment before you and the task at hand.

There is simply no way of knowing what will come next.

"We would like to be in the playoffs, I am not saying that. We would like to be in the playoffs. That’s what we’re here for," Belichick said yesterday at Gillette Stadium. "I think our guys are playing hard, preparing well and they are playing very competitively. But, we are not in it with Arizona at this point. They are in a different conference."

And on this particular day, the Pats were in a different league.

Roughly three hours later, the Pats had their portal into January when the Seattle Seahawks knocked off the reeling New York Jets by a 13-3 score within a swing pass of Puget Sound. In New England, it might as well have been the shot heard round the world. Next up for the Jets are the Miami Dolphins, who just happen to be tied with the Patriots for first place in the AFC East. And oh, by the way, the Dolphins are this year’s NFL answer to the 1967 Red Sox, possessors of a 1-15 record a year ago (and, thus, the No. 1 pick in the draft) who now are within one win from a division championship and in complete control of their destiny.

Miami’s quarterback next week will be none other than Chad Pennington, the man whom the Jets cast off before acquiring Brett Favre, he of the gray beard and (once?) golden gun. So now Favre runs the risk of missing the playoffs while Pennington is on the verge of making it, only adding to the intrigue of what will be a typically cataclysmic Week 17 in the NFL season.

Take note, Detroit Lions.

There is hope.

Do the Patriots deserve to be in the playoffs? You bet they do, from the coach to the quarterback to the kicker to the running backs. For all of the talk about the potential fruitlessness of an 11-5 season, 10 wins really should have been enough. In the NFL, the line between legitimate postseason viability is drawn somewhere between 9-7 and 10-6, and the Patriots have crossed it. This is true despite a considerable amount of adversity, no matter how soft the schedule, because we long ago learned the lessons taught us by a man who, appropriately enough, has significant ties to the Pats, Dolphins, and Jets entering the final week of this season.

In the words of Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are.

And as Belichick himself reiterated roughly a year ago at this time after the Pats completed a 16-0 regular season with a victory over the New York Giants, there are no easy games in this league.

All of this brings us back to Cassel, who stands as Exhibit B for the indisputable argument of You Just Never Know. (The man Cassel replaced, Tom Brady, forever will remain Exhibit A.) A seventh-round draft pick and the 230th overall selection of the 2005 draft, the man who might have been Mr. Irrelevant has proven anything but. On a day when the Patriots abused the Cardinals with an assortment of screens and short passes, Cassel finished 20 of 36 for 345 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. Over the last six games, Cassel has completed 58.8 percent of his passes (143 for 243) for 1,815 yards (an average of 302.5 per game) while throwing 14 touchdowns and four interceptions. During that span, he also has rushed 27 times for 128 yards, an average of 4.7 yards per carry.

Yesterday, in the irony of all ironies, Cassel came off the field (for precautionary measures) just as Matt Leinart was going on, the latter now assuming the role of mop-up man and his Heisman Trophy serving as nothing more than an elaborate paperweight.

"I think Matt Leinart is a great player and he’ll be a great player in the NFL,’’ Cassel said of his former roadblock. "He did a great job at USC. We won two national championships with him as a starting quarterback at USC, so they obviously made the right decision."

Nonetheless, yesterday triggered a succession of questions, none of which has a correct answer:

How might the Southern Cal Trojans have fared those years if Pete Carroll chose Cassel, and not Leinart, as his starting quarterback?

Would Leinart now be the man replacing Brady?

Would the Jets have been better off with Pennington and would Favre have been better off on a beach somewhere?

Most incredible of all, have the Patriots missed Brady nearly as much as they have missed, say, Asante Samuel, Adalius Thomas, or Rodney Harrison?

In the Belichickian world, of course, each of those questions is nothing more than a needless exercise because there is no point in wasting energy on what might have been. All that matters now is what is. Come Sunday, the Patriots must beat Buffalo while hoping for losses from either the surprising Dolphins or salivating Baltimore Ravens, the latter of whom host the disappointing Jacksonville Jaguars. Belichick’s best chance appears to require him rooting for Mangini, though we should all approach this weekend carefully.

In this league, after all, nothing is ever what it seems.

Four men walk into a pub on Canal Street -- The Fours, naturally -- waiting to be seated for lunch. The host approaches and immediately recognizes the patrons, for they are perhaps the most influential men of the moment in Boston sports:

Wyc Grousbeck, John Henry, Jeremy Jacobs, and Robert Kraft -- a.k.a., The Owners. What follows is the conversation that transpired between the four members of this exclusive and remarkably successful club . . .

Host: Gentlemen, you're back! It must be that time of year again, yes?

Kraft: (In a deliberate, nasal tone) In-deed ... it ... is ... Jon-a-than. It's ... time ... for ... our ... an-nual ... lunch. This ... is ... when ... we ... give ... thanks ... for ... be-ing ... in ... the ... best ... sports ... ci-ty ... in ... A-mer-i-ca.

(Others nod.)

Grousbeck: (Eagerly) Couldn't have said it better myself, Bob. (Pause.) Can I call you Bob?

Kraft: Of ... course. Just ... don't ... call ... me ... daddy.

(Others laugh.)

Host: Right this way, gentlemen. I've reserved your usual table. Please be seated and let us know how we can serve you. Your waiter will be along shortly.

Kraft: Well ... it's ... nice ... to ... see ... you ... all ... a-gain ... boys. This ... is ... u-su-al-ly ... when ... we ... take ... time ... to ... look ... back ... on ... the ... year ... that ... was. We ... are ... tru-ly ... blessed ... to ... be ... in ... such ... a ... pass-ion-ate ... place ... for ... sports.

As ... the ... sen-ior ... rank-ing ... Bos-to-ni-an ... in ... this ... group ... let ... me ... be-gin ... by ... say-ing ... that ... it ... has ... been ... a ... glor-i-ous ... year ... for ... the ... Kraft ... fam-i-ly.

(There is awkward pause. The others look puzzled. Henry leans forward, as if to speak, when the waiter arrives with water, menus and a bread basket for the table. As the waiter promises to return for a drink order and pokes fun at Kraft, Jacobs stealthily slips a sourdough roll into his pocket.)

Henry: (His is voice so hushed the others strain to hear.) Uh, Robert, what do you mean? Hasn't this been a tough year for you? I mean, it started with the playoffs and Super Bowl. Then Spygate. Then Tom Brady got hurt. You'll be lucky if you make the playoffs.

(The others nod hesitantly.)

Kraft: Don't ... be ... sil-ly ... John. There ... is ... plen-ty ... to ... be ... thank-ful ... for. We ... were ... vin-di-ca-ted ... in ... that ... fool-ish ... Spy-gate ... non-sense ... no ... thanks ... to ... that ... stooge ... Ar-len ... Spec-ter. Tom-my's ... knee ... will ... fine. The ... game ... was ... a ... big ... dis-ap-point-ment ... but we'll ... be ... back. (Pause) Be-sides ... we ... just ... op-ened ... a new ... mall!

(Henry nods. Grousbeck smiles nervously. Jacobs slips a piece of silverware into his other pocket.)

(The waiter returns.)

Waiter: Gentlemen, I'll be happy to take any questions you have on the menu. I'm also happy to take your drink orders.

Jacobs: Do you have Buffalo wings?

Waiter: Actually, sir, we have two kinds, the traditional bone-in wings and the boneless tenders. Both come in varying degrees of hotness, with blue cheese and carrot sticks. Shall I order some for the table?

Jacobs: Which are the cheapest?

Waiter: Sir?

Jacobs: Do the hotter ones cost more? And do we have to pay more to have the bones removed? (The others hold back their laughter.)

Waiter: No sir. They all cost the same.

Jacobs: We'll have two orders of boneless for the table, then. And fire 'em up!

Waiter: Right away, sir. Drinks, gentlemen?

Grousbeck: I'll have the champagne.

Henry: I'll have a chardonnay.

Kraft: Your ... best ... scotch. On ... the ... rocks. Make ... it ... a ... dou-ble.

Jacobs: Just water, please.

Grousbeck: Do you allow cigars?

Waiter: Unfortunately no, sir
.
Grousbeck: Damn.

Henry: (Turns toward Kraft.) So wait. You actually view this as a good year? I mean, you could have had the only 19-0 season in league history. Beyond that, you didn't win the championship.

Kraft: True. ... But ... nei-ther ... did ... you. (Grins.)

Jacobs: Amen to that, Bob!

Grousbeck: Uh, boys? (Extends his right hand to reveal a colossal, downright gaudy championship ring decorated in diamonds and emeralds. The others immediately turtle. Grousbeck beams with pride.)

Jacobs: So that's what one of those looks like.

Henry:You would wear that.

Kraft: Talk ... to ... me ... when ... you ... get ... three ... of ... those ... son.

Henry: Or even two.

Grousbeck: (Turns toward Henry.) Maybe we should plan now to have lunch next summer?

(Flustered, Henry takes a sip from his water and mutters something no one else can hear.)

Jacobs: All nonsense aside, you should be proud of that, young Wycliffe. That was quite a story. For the Celtics to turn things around so quickly, you deserve a great deal of credit. You set an example for all of us. And for me, personally, you've given me hope that we can indeed turn things around and contend for a championship someday soon.

Grousbeck: Thanks, Jerry. Can I call you Jerry? I don't know where to begin. Obviously, Danny Ainge deserves a lot of the credit. I guess it's a good thing we didn't fire Doc Rivers, eh? (The owners all share a good laugh.) But really, every team should have a leader like Kevin Garnett. Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, too. In fact, from top to bottom, our guys were terrific.

Henry: What happened with James Posey?

Grousbeck: Business decision.

(Kraft, Henry and Jacobs all nod knowingly.)

Kraft: Good for you, kid.

(The waiter returns with drinks and the appetizers. Kraft slugs downs his scotch. Grousbeck savors the champagne, and Henry sips his wine. Jacobs pulls a straw out of his breast pocket, peels off the wrapper and begins drinking his water while scarfing down the wings.)

Waiter: Ready to order gentlemen?

Kraft: I'll ... have ... French ... on-ion ... soup - and ... a-noth-er ... scotch.

Grousbeck: Lobster bisque and the sesame crusted ahi. Soy on the side. Can the chef add a wasabi drizzle?

Waiter: I'm sure, sir.

Grousbeck: Excellent.

Henry: I'll have the grilled chicken breast with steamed broccoli. Hold the rice, if you can, and double the broccoli.

Waiter: Will do, sir.

Jacobs: Just a side garden salad with oil and vinegar.

Waiter: Shall I bring all the food at once, gentlemen?

Grousbeck: That would be fine.

Kraft: But ... bring ... the ... scotch ... first.

(Awkward pause.)

Grousbeck: Trying to forget something, Bob? In any case, it's been a heck of a year for us. That Atlanta game last night made me especially proud. Our guys really have shown no signs of letting up and Doc has them as motivated as ever. It makes my job easy. The Garden is like a completely different place now. It's buzzing every night. Which reminds me . . .

(Grousbeck looks toward Jacobs.)

Jacobs: What?

Grousbeck: You're having a hell of a year!

Kraft: (Under his breath) It's ... a-bout ... freak-in' ... time.

Jacobs: Well, yes. It has been quite a story. I must give all of the credit to Peter Chiarelli and Claude Julien, in particular. I really do think we have the right men running our operation now. Cam, just in his presence, has made quite a difference, too. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I can sit here with all of you and feel like I belong. Really, gentlemen, I feel like we're relevant again. The coach, in particular, has made such an enormous difference. (Looks at Grousbeck.) Think of it, young Wycliffe: Two years ago at this time, neither one of us could win a game, it seemed. The Garden was not a particularly entertaining place. Now, the very best defense in professional basketball and hockey is played right here in Boston, in the TD Banknorth Garden, and the home team usually wins as a result. Defense wins, men.

Kraft: Putting his head in hands.) That's ... ex-act-ly ... what ...wor-ries ... me.

Henry: Youth is important, too.

Jacobs: I agree, especially in our sport. Speed and energy are so important. To me, a lot of this goes back to last spring, to Games 5 and 6 against Montreal, when our guys really showed some fight. Even though we lost Game 7, I think that series meant a lot to us. Our guys learned something about our coach and they learned something about themselves. They showed up looking like a different team this year. I'm proud of them.

Grousbeck: You should be.

Kraft: Now all you have to do is win a playoff series. (Laughter.)

Grousbeck: What about you, John?

(As Henry starts to speak, the waiter returns with lunch and serves each man his meal. As the others start in on their meals, Henry takes a small bite of chicken, uses his napkin to dab the sides of his mouth, and is about to speak when Jacobs interrupts.)

Jacobs: Are you really going to spend $200 million on that guy? By the way, you're buying lunch.

Henry: (Chuckles uncomfortably.) You know the rules, Jerry. We don't kiss and tell. All I can tell you is that we have always believed in putting the best team on the field. I suppose this could make it more difficult for us to peddle that nonsense about unable to spend with the Yankees, but that's a small price to pay for a world championship. And as we all know now, championships are all that matter here.

Kraft: Tell ... me ... a-bout ... it.

Grousbeck: Is it true that television ratings were down last year, by as much as 20 percent?

Jacobs: Ours are up 30 percent!

Henry: Yes, it's true. I think it was about 19.8 percent, to be exact. We think Wyc's team had something to do with that. (Smiles at Grousbeck.) We also think that our team was growing a little stale in some ways, that we needed a transfusion of sorts. That's part of the reason we're trying to do something big -- that and the fact that we have to replace Manny's bat in the lineup.

Grousbeck: Between us in the club: Was he really that much of a pain in the butt?

Henry: Think of him as, say, Allen Iverson on his worst day. But instead of skipping practice, he skipped games.

Grousbeck: Oh my.

Henry: But the goofball sure can still hit.

Jacobs: See?! Superstars aren't worth it!

(Bored, Kraft glances at his watch and mutters something that sounds like "David Bleepin' Tyree.")

Henry: This much I know, gentlemen: We're in good shape going forward. Theo has done a marvelous job with our baseball operation to position us for the short term and the long. I can't promise more championships, but I can promise more excitement and entertainment. And if Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell had been healthy in October, we might have another one of those. (Points to Grousbeck's ring.)

Kraft: What-ev-er. ... If ... A-san-te ... had ... bet-ter ... hands ... I'd ... be ... look-ing ... for ... one ... for ... my ... thumb.

(Kraft glances at his watch again, informing the others he has a meeting in Foxborough. The others chuckle, needling Kraft that he should lobbied harder for a stadium downtown. The waiter returns with the check, which Grousbeck is saddled with as the result of being the only current title-holder at the table. The others thank Grousbeck.)

Grousbeck: Happy to do it, gentlemen. With any luck, I'll be treating again next year.

Kraft: Well ... it ... prob-ab-ly ... won't ... be ... me!

Henry: (Laughing.) If we win, I'll make sure I get Tom Werner to come!

(Kraft, Henry, Grousbeck and Jacobs shake hands and exchange pleasantries, then head for the door. Jacobs lingers behind, telling the others he must use the rest room. The Bruins owner then returns to the table and asks the waiter to pack him a doggy bag with the table's leftovers, which Jacobs plans to present to the Bruins coaching staff.)

Jacobs: I told them I'd buy them lunch.

(The waiter nods. Jacobs then scurries off and the waiter begins clearing the table.)

Waiter: Hey, wait a minute. Where did all the silverware go?

* * *

The Fab Four transcript is meant to be satirical. Any similarity to real events is purely coincidental. Honest.

(Photos by Reuters and Jim Davis / Globe Staff)

FOXBOROUGH -- What if this is as good as it gets? What if this euphoric chapter in Patriots history is complete? What if the karma was buried right there in the desert, alongside the historic undefeated season and the run at immortality?

Presented the chance to make a statement on the cusp of December, the Patriots got their noses pushed in late yesterday in the form of a 33-10 beating by the Pittsburgh Steelers on the phony turf at Gillette Stadium. The cold, hard rain brought a cold, hard reality. Once unbeatable in their digs on Route 1 -- old or new -- the Pats now have suffered two home defeats by 21 or more points this year, something that hasn't happened in New England since the intrepid Rod Rust (mis)led the Pats to a 1-15 finish during the calamitous fall and winter of 1990.

Fine. We all know that is nothing more than a statistical quirk. But the Pats are now 7-5 entering the final four games of this season, a mere 7-6 since the start of play on Feb. 3, and we are all being served a harsh reminder of how the other half lives in an NFL world where no one is safe.

Most of the time.

"I thought we played hard out there, I just didn't think we played well," said a succinct Bill Belichick after yesterday's game. "We didn't play well enough."

They really weren't even close.

Yes, there have been injuries, beginning with the one to the talented and fashionable GQB, the inimitable Tom Brady. Beyond that, Sammy Morris, LaMont Jordan, Laurence Maroney, Ty Warren, Adalius Thomas, Rodney Harrison, and Terrence Wheatley all have missed significant time or suffered season-ending setbacks. The fact that the Pats are even still talking about the playoffs is a borderline miracle, a testament to their football operation, their leadership, and to what they have built.

Here's the worrisome part: All this time, the clock has been ticking and nothing lasts forever. Prolonged success in the modern NFL is the exception rather than the norm, and the Patriots' dominance is bound to end sooner rather than later. By the time this season plays out, four years will have passed since the Pats won a Super Bowl, a period that generally encompasses the entire second term of George W. Bush.

Look at it this way: In the first four years Belichick effectively had Brady as his starter, the Pats won three titles. In the next four, the total will be zero. (Wanna bet?) Meanwhile, the Atlanta Falcons now look better positioned for the long term than do the Patriots, which shouldn't shock anyone given the cyclical nature of professional sports.

In the NFL, especially, success is difficult to maintain. Entering last postseason, the Pats looked like a juggernaut and the New York Giants looked like a classic case of one-and-done. Since that time, the Giants are 15-1 while the Pats are 9-6. That shocking reality is precisely why Belichick preaches the importance of playing one game at a time, something far easier to do when you are the team setting the pace, in complete control of the field.

Once that control is gone, the mind is more easily infiltrated. Baltimore needs to lose. Miami needs to lose. What's Indy's record now? The Patriots of old could focus solely on themselves because they didn't have to worry about anyone else. Now they do.

"We're not worried about Baltimore. We worry about us," Pittsburgh receiver Hines Ward said yesterday when asked about the Steelers' slim lead in the North Division and the team's potential pursuit of a first-round bye. "Everyone else has to catch up to us. We've had the hardest schedule in the league and we're 9-3."

Know why Ward can get away with that kind of thinking?

Because the Steelers probably have the best team in the AFC, the Tennessee Titans included.

Recognizing that Brady's absence is a positively enormous variable, let's acknowledge the worrisome trends here. The Patriots had a chance to win at Indianapolis last month and blew the game on a stupid penalty. Against the New York Jets, in overtime, the defense failed to get off the field on a third-and-15 at the opposing 15-yard line. Yesterday, the Pats turned the ball over five times, dropped more than a few passes and gave up 161 yards rushing while allowing five sacks.

Beyond that, the New England defense has forced a total of just six fumbles this year, tied for the lowest total in the league. They have allowed 21 touchdown passes, second-most in the NFL. The draft class of 2006 looks like a collective bust -- the Pats took Maroney first and Chad Jackson second when they might have had Green Bay's Greg Jennings in the second round -- and much of the 2007 class was swapped out in the deals that brought Randy Moss and Wes Welker to New England.

Don't misunderstand. Nobody regrets the Moss and Welker deals. Those trades gave the 2007 Pats the most prolific offense in NFL history and brought them thisclose to an undefeated season. The tradeoff was that the Pats sacrificed some youth and salary cap flexibility to get there, which only made the outcome of Super Bowl XLII all the more damning.

All of this brings us back to Brady, who is now at a crossroads in his career. As such, the Pats similarly find themselves teetering on the brink. Despite playful debates about the relative importance of each -- is the coach or the quarterback? -- we all know that the Patriots success' this millennium has been built on the marriage of masterminds. The Pats had both. Every modern NFL dynasty has been built using an identical formula -- Terry Bradshaw and Chuck Noll in Pittsburgh, Joe Montana and Bill Walsh in San Francisco, Troy Aikman and Jimmy Johnson in Dallas -- and the Patriots clearly are no different.

But now? Let's be honest. We don't know if Brady will be the same player again, be it because of the knee or anything else. He is getting older, too. He has other things in his life that seem as important to him (or more so) than football. Meanwhile, the Patriots have at least temporarily slipped into the middle class like Henry Hill, the onetime large-living mobster of "Goodfellas" who entered the witness protection program, sacrificing his essence to ensure his existence.

For a time, Hill had the best of everything.

In the end, he had to live his life like an ordinary schnook.

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?

"Matt Cassel played a helluva game. I don't think you can make a throw any better than the one he made at the end."
-- Brett Favre

FOXBOROUGH -- In the end, as the New York Jets methodically advanced down the field, Matt Cassel found himself in a most familiar place: on the sideline. The man who has spent the bulk of his NFL career as a backup to the great Tom Brady could do nothing but watch, undoubtedly leading to a conversation Cassel has had with himself countless times before.

Just give me a chance.

The 2008 Patriots season is now 10 games old following last night's 34-31 loss to the New York Jets, and maybe it is time for us to admit a somewhat startling reality: They really haven't missed Brady quite as much as we thought they would. The Patriots are 6-4 and they could easily be 8-2, their last two defeats coming by a combined six points in entirely winnable games. And as much as Brady might have made a difference on those nights, the downfall of the Patriots in each instance resulted more from some very uncharacteristic and downright stupid mistakes at positively critical times of the game.

Let's see: David Thomas took a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty on what could have been the game-winning drive against the Indianapolis Colts. In the same game, Jabar Gaffney dropped a touchdown pass that was all but delicately placed in his hands like a tray of champagne flutes.

Last night, the Patriots defense was called for not one, but two defensive holding calls inside the 10-yard line. They failed to execute a snap in the shotgun and suffered a mind-numbing 24-yard loss, turning a first and 10 into a second and 34. And then there was Ben Watson's fumble, arguably the worst Patriots giveaway since Patrick Pass unforgettably grabbed his hamstring and voluntarily dropped the football in the middle of the field as if he were putting down his suitcase.

Are you kidding?

About the only remotely familiar thing with the Pats in those games has been the play of the quarterback.

"All we asked of him is to continue to improve and he's done that," Pats linebacker Tedy Bruschi said after last night's loss. "I think he's shown the league that we can win with him."

Well, yes and no.

What he's shown the league is that somebody can win with him, even if the Patriots haven't necessarily maximized the opportunity.

By now, we all have seen Cassel's numbers from what was on many levels a historic performance last night. He finished with 400 yards passing and three touchdowns (against no interceptions) while completing 30 of 51 passes and rushing for another 62 yards. According to the NFL Network, since the merger of the AFL and NFL nearly 40 years ago, Cassel is the only quarterback in history to throw for 400 yards and rush for at least 60 in the same game.

Beyond that, trailing by seven points with 1:04 remaining and no timeouts left, Cassel executed the kind of game-tying drive of which legends are made, culminating in a precise, hair-splitting throw to Randy Moss in a pitch-and-catch combination that was indefensible because it was executed perfectly.

What a drive.

And all from a guy who has started nine games since high school.

For the Pats, the only unfortunate part of Cassel's breathtaking development is that someone else is going to gain from it; the young man is a free agent at the end of the year, and he will be too expensive to keep as a backup quarterback when GQB returns to the field, whenever that may be. The end result is that Cassel benefited from last night's game far more than the Patriots did, if only because there is now evidence that he can do more than just prevent a football team from losing.

He can single-handedly bring a team back, and more important, he can lead.

Already, the unrelenting nitwit factions of the Internet and talk radio worlds are spinning their wheels wondering if there is way for the Pats to dump Brady, which ultimately is nothing but further evidence that Cassel is not nearly as big a problem as Bill Belichick's one-time vaunted defense.

"We've spread teams out before and we've thrown the ball well before,'' Cassel said when asked if both he and the Patriots last night demonstrated an offensive capability that might prod future opponents to rethink strategy. "This was just something that happened. We were down and the coaches felt it was the best way to try to get ourselves back in the ballgame, so I don't know if we'll use this going forward or not."

In some ways, even that is immaterial.

What is important is that the Patriots threaten to use it.

Despite the line of some postgame questioning in the catacombs of Gillette Stadium, last night's game did not decide anything in the AFC East and it was not a "changing of the guard" in the division, the latter of which actually was queried to Jets coach Eric Mangini following the game. The Pats are now one game behind the Jets in the division with six games remaining on the schedule, which means that nearly 40 percent of the schedule still remains. Belichick has lots of issues to address before the Pats next take the field in Miami Nov. 23, ranging from the injuries to the cashmere mafia that is his soft secondary to special teams play that has been anything but.

Ironic, isn't?

Way back when, all the Pats asked Cassel to do was to give them a chance.

Now they're not giving him one.

FOXBOROUGH -- Before Randy Moss, before Wes Welker and the weekly air circus that was the 2007 season, the Patriots prided themselves on being amorphous. The Pats would run one week, throw the next, and all of it was predicated on the thing that Bill Belichick exploits better than anyone else: the matchup.

Opponents often had the choice to name the game.

And the Patriots would beat them at it.

Now here we are, smack-dab in the middle of a critical three-game divisional stretch, and a funny thing has happened: The Patriots just might need to show us again that they have the ability to adapt. New England effectively manhandled the Buffalo Bills yesterday by a deceiving 20-10 score at Gillette Stadium -- in the old days, did they ever win big? -- and next up is a New York Jets club that seemingly will require the Pats to do the things they have not done in the last several weeks.

One of which will be to rely on the quarterback.

"I think we're a more experienced team now," defensive lineman Richard Seymour said when asked how the Patriots have changed since defeating the Jets by a 19-10 score in Week 2. "Obviously, it was the second game of the season. We're better conditioned and we have a better understanding of our jobs, what we have to do in order to win. But every week is different."

Every week is different. Does any phrase more accurately describe the general philosophy of the entire Belichick era? Before last season, before Brady threw 50 touchdowns and Moss caught 23, the Patriots won games the old-fashioned way: with grit. They ran the ball and defended the run. They committed few penalties. They got mistake-free play from the quarterback and they made their kicks, and they relied on their coach to exploit every advantage on any given Sunday.

Now the Patriots are 6-3 and playing their best football of the season. With a change or two at Indianapolis in Week 9, they could be 7-2 and riding a four-game winning streak. The next test comes quickly, on Thursday night against the Jets, and on paper, at least, Belichick might need to place more on his quarterback's shoulders than he has at any point this season.

The reason? Entering Thursday night, the Jets rank fifth in the NFL against the run both in terms of yards per game (76.4) and yards per carry (3.2). Nose tackle Kris Jenkins has been playing as well as any defensive player in the league. The Jets also have scored more points than any team in the AFC thanks largely to a running game that has averaged a whopping 4.6 yards per carry, which creates an interesting dilemma for the accomplished coach of the Patriots.

If the Patriots are to score in this game, they likely will have to do it through the air, which places an onus on Cassel.

And if New England is intent on stopping the run, Belichick may very well be matching up a young and inexperienced secondary against the experienced (albeit mistake-prone) Brett Favre.

Decisions, decisions.

"The Jets, from what I've seen on TV, have got some good momentum, too," noted Patriots defensive back Ellis Hobbs.

With regard to Cassel, let's look at the facts. As well as the Patriots have played since getting their doors blown off (mostly through the air) by the San Diego Chargers, Cassel has thrown one touchdown pass (against three interceptions) in the last three weeks. In the last two games, Randy Moss has averaged 10.7 yards per catch. Come Thursday, New England's success might very well depend on Cassel's ability to go downfield, which means they cannot afford any dropkicks from people like Jabar Gaffney.

Barring a sensational performance from the New England defense, the Patriots are going to need to score more often than they have lately. And before anyone suggests that they implement the same game plan they used against the Indianapolis Colts earlier this month, remember that the rushing yards won't be as easy to come by against the Jets. Over the last two games, the Patriots have had an edge in time of possession totaling a mind-numbing 24 minutes and 8 seconds -- that is almost an entire half -- and the cumulative score is Patriots 35, Other Guys 28.

This team simply does not have margin for error anymore, though we have all known that since the Patriots lost the human navigational device known as TomTom.

Does this mean the Patriots cannot win? Au contraire. It just means that they have to do things differently, which always has been one of Belichick's strengths. In January 2005, on the way to their third Super Bowl title, the Patriots played two dramatically different games in the AFC playoffs. In the first, they took down the offensively explosive Colts by a 20-3 score; a week later, they dismantled the defensive-minded Steelers by a 41-27 count. While the Patriots flaunted their versatility, their opponents could not do the same.

Lest anyone think that the Week 2 meeting between the Pats and Jets will serve as any barometer for this week's affair, don't make that mistake. Both teams have changed considerably since then. The Patriots ran for 104 yards in that game, but LaMont Jordan had 62 of them and the team averaged a mere 3.2 yards per carry. Moss had two catches and the Patriots scored their only touchdown after Brandon Meriweather picked off Favre on the Jets' side of the field. Favre was playing just his second game with the Jets and New York averaged 5.0 yards per rush in what was otherwise a very defensive-minded game.

Maybe this game will be similar, but there is every chance it won't.

"The Jets look like they're playing well," said Seymour. "It's going to be a big game come Thursday, and then Miami [Nov. 23] and Pittsburgh [Nov. 30] after that. This is where the rubber meets the road."

This is where the Patriots of old excelled.

This might be where we learn if these Patriots can do the same.

INDIANAPOLIS -- In the final analysis, as silly as it sounds, the Patriots need more games like this, not fewer.

But then, that is precisely what made this loss so frustrating.

"You come in with a game plan and you execute it for the most part, and it still doesn't go your way," Pats cornerback Ellis Hobbs said last night at Lucas Oil Stadium, where the Pats dropped a maddening 18-15 decision to the Indianapolis Colts. "You kind of wonder what happened."

Ultimately, there really is no need to do that, because we know exactly what happened: Jabar Gaffney dropped an easy touchdown pass; David Thomas was called for a costly penalty; Bill Belichick personally cost his team not one timeout, but two, the second of which negated the conversion of a fourth and 1 at the Colts 7-yard line at the start of the fourth quarter.

But beyond that, the Patriots had the perfect game plan and generally executed it with astonishing precision, and there were more reasons to be encouraged than discouraged.

Many more.

Before we go any further, let's start with the obvious truth that the Colts needed this game more than the Patriots did. On paper, it looked like a potential blowout, regardless of whether Belichick publicly would admit it. Clearly, the coach had no intention of doing anything that would allow the Colts quick scores when his entire offensive backfield was either inactive or on injured reserved for a second consecutive week.

So the Patriots held the ball for 34 minutes, 24 seconds. So they ran 67 offensive plays to the Colts' 50. So they rushed for 140 yards and averaged 4.4 yards a carry. So they made their kicks. So they protected the ball. So they gave themselves a chance against an accomplished team, quarterback, and coach, on the road, as the 2008 NFL season reached its midpoint.

So they lost. So what? The gains of this game far outweighed the losses because the Patriots last night showed us that they are getting better, which suddenly makes the second half of this season far more interesting than we might have guessed after the team's 16th offensive play on back on Sept. 7, otherwise known as The Moment Everything Changed.

"It's just frustrating to lose a game like we lost," said tackle Matt Light, who joined wide receiver Randy Moss in some thinly veiled criticism of the officiating after the unnecessary roughness penalty against tight end David Thomas that stifled the Patriots' final drive of the game. "We played a good game."

Know what?

He's right.

Again, let's be honest with ourselves. As recently as a few weeks ago, the Patriots looked mediocre at best, boring and uninspired at worst. In their last nationally televised road game before last night, they got their teeth kicked in by a San Diego Chargers outfit that currently owns a 3-5 record. (Would you rather be them?) Then the Pats came out and blasted a Denver team that now looks to be in a flat spin, all before last week's ugly-stick special against a wretched St. Louis Rams club that just went home and got thumped upside the head by the Arizona Cardinals.

In the midst of all this, one question prevailed over all others: Could Matt Cassel really be consistent and efficient enough to give this team a fighting chance?

Last night, in what was easily his best professional game, Cassel went 25 of 34 for 204 yards, looking very much like a legitimate NFL quarterback. The one interception he threw came on a fourth-and-15 play at the Indy 45 on what was nothing more than a desperation heave. Cassel's play has done nothing but improve over the past few weeks, and the quarterback of the Patriots last night put his team in a position to win.

Take a good look at the things that went wrong.

None of them had anything to do with the quarterback.

"I like what I see and I don't think I'm the only one," Moss said when asked of Cassel's development. "I think Matt is carrying this offense really well. I think we're still getting acclimated to him being out there, but he's doing a heck of a job."

Frequently, comments like that are nothing more than political garbage, a teammate doing what a teammate is supposed to do.

This one also happened to be accurate.

So where does this all leave the Pats with eight games to play? With regard to the standings, at least, precisely where they were a week ago at this time. Pending tonight's outcome between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins, only one team in the AFC (the Tennessee Titans) has more wins than the Patriots. They still are tied atop the AFC East with the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets, both of whom just happen to be coming to Foxborough over the next 10 days. The Pats are in contention for a first-round playoff bye as much as they are for a playoff spot, an utterly shocking development given the blows they have absorbed in the backfield on both sides of the ball.

Last week, after the 23-17 victory over the Rams that was anything but inspiring, fullback Heath Evans was among those who noted that the Patriots are still searching for their identity, that November and December were those months in which the contenders and pretenders separated themselves. Last week, despite their won-lost record, the Patriots still looked like a run-of-the-mill operation, which had more to do with how they played than with the end result.

This week?

Sure, they lost.

But it sure looked like they took a big step in the right direction.

The coach sports this team now like a familiar piece of clothing: old, worn, cut off at the elbows and colored in the drib and drab of grayness. But comfortable nonetheless. Functional, too.

"Let's not kid ourselves," running back Heath Evans said yesterday in the wake of the Patriots' 23-16 victory over the St. Louis Rams. "You could say [a 5-2 record] is an accomplishment, but let me reiterate: It's not the accomplishment we're looking for, you know? There are no excuses here and no one feels sorry for us.

"We want to be a great team. Those are always the goals," Evans continued. "You play this game for one reason and that's to win -- and win a lot. Our appetite around here has been whet with success and the other side of that is no fun to deal with. So you work hard and follow the lead of Bill Belichick, and most of the time we can find a way to get it done."

So here we are, eight weeks into the 2008 NFL regular season, and a funny thing is happening while Tom Brady is piling up procedures and treatments on his left knee as if he were a young Bobby Orr: The Patriots are almost exactly where they should be. Yesterday's win over the Rams put the Patriots alongside the Buffalo Bills atop the reshuffled AFC East, and only two teams in football (the Tennessee Titans and New York Giants) have fewer losses than the team quarterbacked by Matt Cassel.

Yesterday? The Patriots played chunks of this game without a backfield -- on either side of the ball -- which can only make you wonder: Exactly when does Wes Welker start taking reps with the defense? For the majority of the fourth quarter against the Rams, the Patriots played with a cast of defensive backs that consisted of Terrence Wheatley, Jonathan Wilhite, Brandon Meriweather, Mike Richardson, and James Sanders. Combined, those players have five fewer years of experience than the sagacious Rodney Harrison, lost last week to a season-ending quadriceps injury.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, Cassel operated an offense on which he was the second-leading rusher (behind Kevin Faulk). The Patriots are so far down on the depth chart at running back that their only rushing touchdown was logged by BenJarvus Green-Ellis, a 23-year-old undrafted rookie out of Mississippi who was entirely anonymous until Laurence Maroney, Sammy Morris, and LaMont Jordan went down with injuries.

Who carries the ball next week, Glengarry Glen Ross?

"We got contributions from everybody. There is no way you could go down the line and name them all, but a lot of guys stepped up. A lot of guys made big plays," said Belichick. "In the end, they hung in there and fought all the way and made the plays in the fourth quarter that we had to make to win."

Before we issue any disclaimers here about who the Patriots could be and whom they have played, let us remember the words of an astute gridiron general: You are what you are. Injuries and upsets are part of the landscape in the NFL, and the most successful teams overcome them. That does not necessarily translate into Super Bowl victories or even postseason appearances as it does into competitiveness, relentlessness, sheer strength of will.

Let's be honest with ourselves: Last year, especially, was the indisputable exception that spoiled us all to the core. Most years, you don't whip the ball all over the field and lead 35-0 at halftime. The Patriots of 2007 should have gone no worse than 14-2 during the regular season because, in terms of talent, they grossly outclassed the entire the NFL. They ended up going a dissatisfying 18-1, the cruelest example ever of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately.

All of this brings us back to Belichick, whose talents are being tested like in perhaps no other season. Lots of coaches might have led the Patriots to a 14-2 record last year; we're willing to bet that fewer would have them 5-2 now. In 2007, Belichick's greatest challenge was to maintain the focus and intensity of a team whose greatest potential opponent was itself (at least until the Super Bowl). In 2008, the Patriots have concerns far more in line with the rest of the football world and every game is as losable as it is winnable.

Sooner or later, the Patriots were going back to reality.

The good news, of course, is that the Patriots have a master problem solver as a coach, a man who treats every game like a unique, three-dimensional puzzle. That is what things were like for Belichick in his early years here. That is when Belichick was at his best. That is when the Patriots would find a way to beat St. Louis despite a depleted secondary, when the Patriots eked out victories they shouldn't have, when their talent was more in line with the rest of the league and when their coach was the one who made up the difference.

And so yesterday, without running backs or defensive backs, against a team with talented receivers and a skilled quarterback, the Patriots gave up field goals instead of touchdowns. They finished with zero yards in penalties. They averaged 8.1 yards per pass attempt and made all of their kicks, and they did the only thing that really matters in the most of result-oriented businesses.

They won.

No matter what it looked like.

The coach or the quarterback? The quarterback or the coach?

Maybe now we'll finally get our answer.

In what was truly a worst-case scenario, the Patriots lost quarterback Tom Brady to a knee injury at Foxborough today on their 16th offensive play ... of the season. Brady limped off the field and never came back. Lifelong backup Matt Cassel came off the bench to lead the Pats to a 17-10, season-opening victory over the rebuilding Kansas City Chiefs, but it certainly felt like the entire 2008 campaign crumpled to the ground in a heap.

Prepare for the worst, Pats followers (Update: Belichick confirmed your worst fears Monday -- Brady out for the season). This was one of those times when it seemed no MRI was necessary to give you a diagnosis.

The pit in your stomach was enough.

"Any time you have a starter go down, no matter if it is your quarterback or anybody [else], I think it hurts,'' Pats receiver Randy Moss told reporters after the game. "By [Brady] being the face of the New England Patriots and Tom being who he is -- and the competitor that he is -- it actually ... it kind of hurts to be honest with you. I know the show must go on and hopefully Matt Cassel is ready to step in. From a team standpoint, we are ready to embrace him and let him lead us.

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"I don't know what Tom's situation is; I don't know how serious it is. ... I was talking to Jabar Gaffney toward the end of the game after [Brady] went in the locker room, [and] every time the fans cheered I looked over at the door [of the locker room tunnel]. I was like a little kid at the candy store just hoping you would see that No. 12 come out those doors and up the steps. Like I said, every time the fans cheered I looked at that door, so basically I was just snapping my neck around every time.''

Don't hold your breath.

Brady might not be walking through that door anytime soon.

So now, the obvious question: Where do the Patriots go from here? Late Sunday afternoon, Patriots players spoke about picking up the slack in the absence of their leader, but this really is not about them anymore. Rather, it is about their coach, the estimable Bill Belichick. More than Bill Parcells and Drew Bledsoe, more than the entire Kraft family, the tandem of Belichick and Brady has made the Patriots what they are today. Since the early stages of the 2001 season, when Mo Lewis knocked Bledsoe senseless, the Patriots have always had the security and comfort of a B&B, granting all of New England a certain coziness in even the most difficult and hostile circumstances.

The Patriots didn't merely have the best coach.

They had the best quarterback, too.

Along the way, while the Patriots were going to five AFC Championship games and four Super Bowls while winning three league titles, we encountered a chicken-and-egg conundrum: Who comes first, the quarterback or the coach? Seemingly, the Patriots have won because they had Belichick first and Brady second, Belichick second and Brady first. In the end, all that really mattered was that the Patriots had them both, simultaneously, which gave them two unflappable and impenetrable decision-makers in a game in which decisions must be made quickly and decisively.

Consider this: With Brady as his starting quarterback, Belichick is 87-24 as a head coach during the regular season, 14-3 during the postseason. He is 3-1 in Super Bowls. Without Brady, Belichick's career regular season record is a mere 41-57 and he is 1-1 in postseason play. (Gulp.)

As such, now might be a good time to point out that the Patriots will likely be forced to change their entire offensive approach without Brady. Over the last seven or eight years, New England's entire attack has been built on Brady's ability to read defenses, make the right choice, find the open man. His mind and his poise always were his best weapons. From David Givens to Deion Branch to Doug Gabriel and Randy Moss, the Patriots always have said that the receiver they throw to is the one that's open. Unsaid in all of that was that they had a quarterback who could find the open man, almost unfailingly, and who played the rest of the NFL like a pinball machine last year when the Pats finally got him some big-time receivers.

Now, Brady appears to be headed to the sideline for an extended period of time, which would offer Belichick arguably the greatest challenge of his coaching career: Can he win without Brady? The Patriots have great depth at running back, a stable of first-round draft picks on the defensive line, three Pro Bowl linemen protecting the quarterback. They have some accomplished veteran linebackers and a bright, promising young one. They have some question marks in the secondary and arguably the best tandem of starting wide receivers in the NFL.

What the Patriots might have, too, is an enormous void at quarterback that could unmask or further elevate one of the great coaches in NFL history.

So what do you think:

Does Bill Belichick need Tom Brady more than Tom Brady needs Bill Belichick?

Share your thoughts in the comments section.