By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist

Sights, sounds and observations while couch-ridden:

On those nights the shots are falling, like Sunday, the Celtics look positively unbeatable. There is no one to stop them. From Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to even Mickael Pietrus, Brandon Bass and Greg Stiemsma, the Celtics have a collection of shooters like few other teams in the league. That is why LeBron James, in April, called them the best jump-shooting team in the league.

James's remarks, of course, came in the wake of the Celtics' 115-107 win at Miami last month that remains the most impressive win of this Celtics season. The Celtics shot 60.6 percent that day. They shot a preposterous 64.3 percent (9 of 14) from 3-point distance. They all but repeated the trick on Sunday against the Atlanta Hawks in an avalanche of jump shots and 3-pointers that produced a 101-79 victory and a 3-1 series lead in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Win or lose tonight in Game 5, the Celtics should rub out these Hawks in no more than six games. In the next round, the Celtics should rub out the Philadelphia 76ers or Chicago Bulls, too. All of that should set up a rematch with the Heat for the right to go to the NBA Finals, and this year's meetings with the Heat have proven that the Celtics indisputably have a chance.

A championship? That still seems unlikely. Even against Miami, the Heat (who will have home court) certainly will be favored. But short of unforseen injury, nothing should stop the Celtics from being in the NBA's final four.

For all of the credit being heaped upon Celtics vice president of basketball operations Danny Ainge this season, for all of the confidence Ainge allegedly showed in his team by failing to "blow it up," we all know better. We all know Ainge was willing to (and tried to) deal. Where Ainge really gets the credit now - and over these last five years - is for continuing to add shooters to a Celtics core of Garnett, Allen and Pierce, all of whom can consistently puncture opponents from the outside.

Generally speaking, think of the complementary players Ainge has brought to Boston in complementary roles over the last five years. James Posey. Eddie House. Sam Cassell. Rasheed Wallace. Pietrus. Bass. Even Keyon Dooling, Delonte West, Sasha Pavlovic and Von Wafer. All of them were at least respectable to above-average shooters at their respective positions, acquisitions designed to make the Celtrics tougher to defend in the half-court setting that invariably categorizes the postseason.

On Sunday, did you find yourself lamenting the Celtics' absence of a low-post offense, something that is almost never talked about anymore? What about their deficiencies in rebounding? The Celtics of today are, in many ways, no different than the Celtics of 2007-08, built on defense and jump shooting, save for the slashing of someone like Avery Bradley.

As Globe columnist Bob Ryan noted on Monday, Celtics coach Doc Rivers often has described the NBA as a "make-miss league."

When the Celtics make like they did Sunday, a trip to the Eastern Conference final seems like a can't-miss proposition.

* * *

Kevin Youkilis is doing all the right things, greeting Will Middlebrooks with smiles at the top step of the dugout, but we all know what is going on here. In four games, Middlebrooks is batting .381 with three home runs and nine RBIs, all as Youkilis and the Red Sox approach the end of a deal that has the Sox holding a $13 million option for next season.

Fact: if Middlebrooks keeps playing like this, Kevin Youkilis is not getting his job back. Not this year. Not as the Red Sox continue to plod along in what seems like the definition of a bridge year, a team without an identity and, it seems, much of a chance. If and when that changes, the Red Sox can adjust accordingly. But there is one (and only one reason) to play Youkilis over Middlebrooks if and when Youkilis is ready to return.

To trade him.

Of course, we are still in the early stages of the 2012 season, and so there is ample time to evaluate these Red Sox, decide what is best for the short term and the long. But in the next two months, the Red Sox will be playing for more than just a potential place among the contenders in the American League. They will be playing for the trading deadline, for the purpose of deciding who stays and who goes in what looks to be a transitional year.

If the Sox are not within reasonable striking distance of a playoff spot come July, Youkilis is trade bait, folks. Ditto for David Ortiz or Daisuke Matsuzaka or Cody Ross or Mike Aviles. For that matter, ditto for just about anyone who might leave the Sox this fall or next. (This means you, Jacoby Ellsbury.) In the wake of last year's September collapse, the Red Sox must take a hard look at anything and everything on the trade market, particularly with youngsters like Middlebrooks, Ryan Kalish, Ryan Lavarnway and Jose Iglesias, among others, now on the cusp of the big leagues.

Middlebrooks is now only the obvious.

* * *

In some ways, Matt Light is that rarest of the rare, an NFL starter since essentially the day he set foot in an NFL traning camp. Light played 12 years and 155 games in the NFL, 153 of them starts. He started every game he played from early in his rookie year. Light protected the blind side of Drew Bledsoe (some) and Tom Brady (mostly) during five trips to the Super Bowl, six trips to the AFC championship and three Super Bowl titles, and he did so with relative consistency, professionalism, dignity.

Was Light ever the best left tackle in pro football, a Hall of Fame-type talent? No. But he was better than average, a very good player for a long time on what has been the most successfuil organization in football during his tenure, which is hardly a coincidence.

Light, in many ways, was the model Patriot during his career, a workmanlike and efficient player who did not self-promote despite a high-profile position.

With regard to the Patriots, the impact of Light's departure could be profound. Logan Mankins will be out for the start of the season. Now the Patriots will have a new left tackle (presumably Nate Solder) on the left side, too. All of that means that Brady's blind side will be guarded by an entirely new tandem, at least in the early part of the season, which may now be the biggest question for a team that has loaded up on offense and defense in free agency and the draft, in that order.

Like any player, Matt Light had good years and bad years during his time with the Patriots.

Maybe now, in his absence, we will come to understand just how good

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

Sprinkling the infield with a little sunshine, a little rain, and a whole lot of fertilizer ...

In the wake of their collapse, beating up on the New York Jets is the fashionable thing to do, just as it was to beat up on the 2011 Red Sox. The teams share some similarities, and they still share them entering their respective 2012 seasons.

Which is why neither should be dismissed.

Let's start with the Jets, who are now being mocked for being so downright stupid as to take on Tim Tebow, whom they acquired from the Denver Broncos for essentially a fourth-round pick. Why is this so dumb? The Jets have an inconsistent quarterback in what is now, more than ever, a quarterback league, and they failed in any pursuit of Peyton manning, however brief. So what were they supposed to do? Go into next season with the same situation at quarterback and offense that has proven insufficient for three years?

Here's what Tebow gives the Jets: options. New York isn't going to win a Super Bowl solely with its passing attack, and the Jets still may not win one now, either. But if the Jets are being truthful by saying about Drew Stanton is still their backup quarterback, then Tebow could provide them with an offensive wrinkle the way Kordell Stewart once did for the Steelers.

And there are these factors: Sanchez, who has been babied since he arrived in New York, needs competition, be it from Stanton or Tebow. And the Jets clearly need character in a locker room that badly lacked it, which something Tebow absolutely, positively possesses in bulk.

After all, look at the impact Tebow had on last year's Broncos, who quickly became believers once he began to play.

* Some of us still would have liked to see the Patriots invest in a true impact player on defense, but it's hard to argue too much with what the Patriots have done thus far in free agency. While retaining Wes Welker, Deion Branch, Dan Connolly and Wes Welker, among others, the Patriots now have added Brandon Lloyd, Daniel Fells, Robert Gallery, Jonathan Fanene, Trevor Scott, Will Allen, Donte Stallworth, Anthony Gonzalez, Steve Gregory and Spencer Larsen. Some of those players will prove to be nothing more than names in a pile of bodies, but the New England passing attack suddenly looks as prolific as ever.

At the moment, three questions remain -- two more significant than the other: the defense, the left side of the offensive line and, to a lesser extent, running back. (Fare thee well, Benjarvus Green-Ellis.) With Logan Mankins injured and Matt Light potentially calling it a career, Tom Brady's blindside is currently in question, with or without Gallery and Nate Solder. As for the defense, one can only hope the Patriots are planning to be aggressive in the draft, where they have two first-round selections and two second-round selections.

Could that be at least part of the reason the Patriots asked Brady to restructure his contract and free up even more salary cap space?

* We all have every right to criticize the Red Sox and question their character in the aftermath of last season, but let's not get silly. The Red Sox are not going to go 83-79. From May 13 through Aug. 31 of last season, the Red Sox went 66-32, a .673 winning percentage that translates into a 109-win pace over a 162-game schedule. There is plenty of talent to win. What this all comes down to is attitude and health, both of which are legitimately in question.

But talent? The Red Sox have plenty. In fact, they still have far more than most.

* Given Bobby Valentine's recent remarks about criticizing his players, can't help but wonder when Valentine said Yankees manager Joe Girardi wasn't very "courteous" in pulling the plug on Thursday night's tie game, was that a fact or an opinion?

* Maybe it has something to do with the preponderance of people in this business from the Newhouse School of Communications, but does anyone else find Syracuse alumni to be disproportionately annoying? We're not saying Syracuse folks have quite entered the arena of Boston College, Duke, and Notre Dame folks, but for a school and program that has been smeared by a succession of scandals of late, Syracuse alums ought to be more red faces and fewer of that unsightly orange clothing.

* The New Orleans Saints got what they deserved, plain and simple. Placing prices on the heads of opposing players is disgraceful to begin with, and lying to cover it up is just as bad.

But as long as Drew Brees stays in uniform, the Saints are going to be a huge factor in the NFC South, especially when New Orleans' out-of-conference schedule features the AFC West.

Of course, New Orleans also has to play the NFC East.

* Peyton Manning immediately makes the Denver Broncos the favorite in the pathetic AFC West, but Denver's schedule in 2012 in hardly a cupcake. Thanks to its first place finish, Denver will face New England and Houston this season. Additionally, the Broncos have both the NFC South and the AFC North on their schedule, which means meetings with Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati. New Orleans and Atlanta, among others.

* We all know that Jose Iglesias probably is not quite ready to hit consistently in the major leagues, but many of us believe the Sox should give Iglesias the nod to start the year with the big club. The Sox can carry one fewer pitcher in the early going, anyway, and the team would benefit a great deal from having a young potentially dynamic player on its roster -- even if Iglesias is only dynamic on defense -- to start the season.

Think about it: when was the last time the Red Sox had a rookie everyone could truly get excited about? Jacoby Ellsbury certainly comes to mind, but that was four years ago. When the Atlanta Braves were at the peak of their reign during the `90s, the Braves liked to integrate about two new starters every three years, turning over the stock and keeping the team infused.

Particularly in the wake of last year, the Red Sox could use the positive energy and bounce Iglesias would bring. The team has too many overpriced veterans to begin with. If Iglesias proves overmatched offensively, the Sox can subsequently send him down to the minors, still leaving open for the possibility of a return late in the season.

What would be wrong with that?

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

No matter what happens with Peyton Manning, the Patriots still have improvements to consider and decisions to make. The NFL salary cap is now firmly established at $120.6 million, and the Patriots have ample room to spend. They may end up with even more.

And this year, more than ever, we may get a true glimpse into the New England philosophy of team building.

Now five weeks removed from their Super Bowl loss to the New York Giants, the Patriots will join the remaining 31 teams in the NFL this week as free agency begins. Estimates place New England's cap flexibility in the neighborhood of $16 million, a number that puts them in the middle of the pack in terms of cap flexibility and a figure that could grow in the coming days or weeks.

And this year, for the first time, the NFL will conduct its draft next month with the benefit of cost control.

So now, the question is obvious:

Will the Patriots act more aggressively than they generally have in years past? Or will they continue with the measured approach that has helped them build the most consistent franchise in the NFL over the last 11 years?

After all, each clearly has its merits.

As is the case with any Patriots team at this time of year, the starting point is obvious: How good are they, really? And how much time does Tom Brady have left? Skeptics (ahem) will note that until defeating Baltimore in the AFC Championship Game, the Patriots did not defeat a single team that finished the 2011 regular season with a winning record. And yet, the Patriots came within a whisker of winning the Super Bowl, an accomplishment that should not be diminished and for which there is no shame.

Nonetheless, the Patriots have needs, most obviously on a defense that looked decent at times, downright wretched at others. Defensive ends Andre Carter and Mark Anderson played well for head coach Bill Belichick in 2011, but both are free agents. Beyond Jerod Mayo, the linebacker corps is inconsistent. Belichick was forced to play musical chairs with a secondary that improved at least some by year's end, but the Patriots still couldn't get off the field against the Giants in the Super Bowl.

Offensively, in addition to the franchised Wes Welker, the Patriots need another receiver. They are currently without a center. And there is still question as to whether they have the necessary elements for a reliable running game -- or whether they are even committed to one.

To this point in Belichick's tenure, we all know how the Patriots have operated. Generally speaking, New England has refrained from big financial commitments in the draft or on the free agent market, compiling draft picks as if they were all raffle tickets of equal value. From team president Jonathan Kraft to Belichick, the Pats have placed particular emphasis on the dreaded V-word -- value -- often forgoing picks in the earliest part of the draft for more cost-effective picks in the late-first round or beyond.

But with the new salary slotting now in place for the draft, will that be true anymore? Is Belichick intent on using the team's two first-round picks (Nos. 27 and 31) or will he trade one out, as he did last year? Will he combine them and actually try to trade up? How much does the presence of the two first-rounders impact the New England approach on the open market?

Or will the Patriots merely conduct business as usual, trading down or out of the higher draft slots while pursuing second-tier (or lower) free agents, all in the name of the salary cap?

And if that happens, won't that be an indication that New England's strategy has more to do with the quantity of players they add each offseason than the quality of players? With regard to the draft, at least, the cost of picks is going down, making the first-rounders more valuable. If the Patriots trade out again, independent of money, can't we say with absolute certainty that they would rather have two picks in the second round than one in the first?

With regard to the free agent market, the biggest fish on this year's market is obvious: defensive lineman Mario Williams. Williams would be a perfect fit in New England. He is a three-down player who can stop the run and pressure the quarterback. He is young. Williams would change everything about the way the Patriots play defense, giving Belichick the kind of dominating defensive end the Patriots have lacked since the departure of Richard Seymour.

The problem? Williams will likely command a contract equal to or greater than the one bestowed on Julius Peppers, who nailed down a six-year deal worth in excess of $90 million from the Chicago Bears two offseasons ago.

And while Patriots supporters will be quick to point out that Belichick dropped a pile of money in front of Adalius Thomas during the spring of 2007, the Patriots have never, ever, made that kind of financial commitment to anyone other than a quarterback.

In the last year, a great deal has changed in the NFL. The Indianapolis Colts disintegrated. The bargaining agreement was renegotiated. The entire landscape of the NFL has changed, the AFC, in particular, pending Manning's decision, and Tom Brady is approaching his 35th birthday.

If the Patriots ever change their way of doing business, now would seemingly be the time.

Wouldn't it?

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

This time, on the seventh Super Bowl trip in New England Patriots history, the forecast is riddled with uncertainty. Never, in fact, have the Patriots played a title game in which the outcome was so clearly in doubt.

All of which makes the national perspective on this game all the more curious, because the large majority of people seem to be picking the New York Giants.

Let's back up here for a moment and state the obvious: in the NFL, especially, Super Bowl predictions mean nothing. The St. Louis Rams (in Super Bowl XXXVI) and the Patriots (Super Bowl XLII) were considerable favorites, and both teams lost the game outright. Not a single one of us can predict what will happen on Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium, and that would be true whether the Patriots were favored by seven or 17.

But here's what doesn't make sense about this game in particular: the Patriots essentially have been a three-point favorite from the start - the smallest Super Bowl point spread in roughly 30 years - and yet most everyone outside of New England is picking the Giants. Why? Based on what? When did such a mismatch become so clear? Everything about Sunday's game suggests that public sentiment should be split as evenly as it was in the 1960 presidential election, and yet the scale seems noticeably skewed in favor of New York.

If you don't understand this, you're not alone.

In New England, too, we all know how good the Giants can be. During New York's run to the Super Bowl, the Giants have played better and more complete football than any other team in what Bill Parcells often referred to as "the tournament." Beginning with a pair of regular season victories over the New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys in Weeks 16 and 17, the Giants have won five straight while allowing a measly 13.4 points per game. They have beaten the top two seeds in the NFC (the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers) on the road. They have beaten no team with anything worse than a .500 record.

Fine. We get it. The Giants are hot. But this is also a team with the capability to play very poorly, something everyone seems to have forgotten in the last month or so.

For example, did you know the Giants were actually outscored during the regular season? Did you know that prior to Week 16, they were a minus 38 for the year? Overall, their pass defense ranked 29th. Their rushing defense ranked 19th. Their rushing offense ranked 32nd. Simply put, there's a reason why the Giants went 7-7 through their first 14 games, something everyone is now too readily dismissing.

So are we just supposed to chuck 14 games of history out the window?

Yes, yes, yes - that was then and this is now. But those earlier games during the season are still at least part of who the Giants are whether New York fans want to admit it or not, just as surely as the Patriots' early-season performance is a part of theirs.

In New England, we know the Patriots' flaws all too well. The Patriots ranked 31st in pass defense, 17th in rushing defense, 20th in rushing offense. Sounds a lot like the Giants, right? Until New England's AFC Championship victory over the Baltimore Ravens, the Patriots had not beaten a team that finished the year with a winning record. Not one. The Patriots faced maybe three teams all year with an elite quarterback - the San Diego Chargers, Pittsburgh Steelers and Giants - and lost two; the only victory came against San Diego in Week 2, when Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers looked more like Ryan Leaf.

So let's get this straight: the national audience is holding the Patriots' regular season against them, but not that of the Giants. Does that make any sense? The Patriots still have Tom Brady. The Patriots still have Bill Belichick. Vince Wilfork could be the best defensive player on either team to be playing in the Super Bowl, something we learned when Wilfork manhandled the Ravens in the AFC title game.

Everything about this game screams that it is a 50-50 proposition - a true coin flip - and yet people seem to be treating it nationally as if the Giants are the obvious choice.

For the Patriots, in some ways, this Super Bowl is unlike any other in which they have played. In Super Bowl XX, despite what people wanted to believe, the Chicago Bears were the obvious choice. Eleven years later, the Green Bay Packers were the clear favorite. The St. Louis Rams were the clear pick in Super Bowl XXXVI, the Patriots in Super Bowls XXXVIII and XXXIX. In Super Bowl XLII, the Patriots were 18-0 entering the game and prohibitive favorites.

Nationally, some skewing of national predictions made sense. But this time?

During the height of the Belichick era, we all know how the Patriots operated. In 2003 and 2004, when the Patriots won back-to-back titles, the Patriots went a combined 34-4 and were clearly the best team in football. Nonetheless, Belichick somehow convinced his players that they were being disrespected, which we all deemed preposterous. The Patriots were damn good and everybody knew it - including them - and nobody disrespected them.

Now, years later, it feels as if people are indeed looking past New England.

Or maybe they're just a little too focused on the Giants.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

Rob Gronkowski was the elephant in the room to begin with, a 6-foot-6-inch, 265-pound behemoth with cast iron legs, a granite torso and hands made of cashmere. Outside of Tom Brady, there may be no more important player on the Patriots. And yet, as we inch toward Super Bowl XLVI, there has been relatively little discussion or information concerning a man who may be downright unstoppable.

Will Gronkowski be able to play?

And if so, how effectively?

Make of it what you will, but the most significant news about Gronkowski came this morning when his father, Gordy, told a New York television station that his son has a high left ankle sprain suffered during Sunday's AFC Championship victory over the Baltimore Ravens. Earlier in the week, the Herald's Ian Rapaport reported that Gronkowski has "some" ligament damage in the ankle. Some. Precisely how much, of course, is entirely unknown to those of us on the outside, though anyone who saw Gronkowski felled by Ravens safety Bernard Pollard winced when Gronkowski's left ankle folded unnaturally inward, as if breaking the binding of a book.

Given the Patriots' history when it comes to discussing injuries -- and nobody is blaming them for this -- the word "some" is rather worrisome. Anyone who has worked in the media will tell you that bad news often comes in diluted form -- if we get it at all. In these cases, many of us apply to the iceberg theory, which is to say that the majority of the story is still beneath the surface.

Translation: If someone in Foxborough is whispering that there is "some" ligament damage, there is likely to be a good deal more.

Purely for the record, here is what Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick said when asked about Gronkowski yesterday:

Reporter: Do you have any doubt Rob Gronkowski will be ready for the game?

Brady: I have no idea. I'm not sure. I think everyone deals with bumps and bruises this time of year. It's the Super Bowl so we're all trying to get out there and be healthy. It would suck to miss this game. You put all the work in over the course of the entire year and to have the opportunity to play in this game, you know everyone is going to be doing everything they can to be out there.

Reporter: How would you describe the progress of Rob Gronkowski?

Belichick: Good, good.

Reporter: If Rob Gronkowski doesn't practice but does play in the game, how much does that affect what you're able to do on the practice field, or do you just rely on the previous 105 practices? I think he was out there for pretty much all of them.

Belichick: Right, yeah I think he was, yeah. We'll just have to see, you know. Today, he's not going to practice today, so we'll take it day-by-day. I'm not going to try to forecast where things will be 10 days from now. We'll just take it day-by-day.

Not a whole lot of information there, right? Brady referred to "bumps and bruises," but does anyone really believe that those words apply in this case? And when Belichick says nothing more than "good, good," the terse nature of the reply only reinforces the notion that the information is sensitive.

Gronkowski is not just hurt. He's injured. And if his ankle or lower leg is hurt badly enough, you can bet your bottom dollar that his own personal advisers are getting involved to insure that Gronkowski's interests, too, are being protected.

To wit: remember the flap between the Red Sox and Jacoby Ellsbury concerning the broken ribs that sidelined Ellsbury for much of 2010? By the time the matter got settled - and we use that term loosely - Ellsbury was rehabilitating in Arizona and consulting his own medical team. As it turns out, Gronkowski's agent is Drew Rosenhaus, who just happens to be the Boras of the NFL. Rest assured that Rosenhaus is hounding the Patriots (and his client) for information about the injury, on which the outcome of the Super Bowl may very well hinge.

If you regard that last perspective as an overstatement, think of what is at stake here. Drafted in the second round of the 2010 draft, Gronkowski signed a four-year contract for $4.4 million. Since that time, his 28 touchdowns rank second to only Houston running back Arian Foster (30) and Philadelphia running back LeSean McCoy (29). Gronkowski is coming off the single greatest season ever recorded by a tight end and will soon be positioned (if he is not already) for a gargantuan payday.

None of this should interpreted as any type of reflection on Gronkowski, who has proven to be nothing short of a warrior during his time with the Patriots. On Sunday, in fact, Gronkowski even came back on the field of play after a trip to the locker room, though he did not have another reception. But agents will be agents -- particularly ones like Rosenhaus -- and treatment is not always as simple as ice, tape and painkillers.

What if "some" ligament damage is a lot? What if Gronkowski risks tearing his ankle apart and turning a bad injury into something more career-threatening? What if he plays and is not the same player either during or after the Super Bowl?

Is that worth it?

On the outside, of course, we all say the same thing: get him back out there. As Brady said, "it's the Super Bowl." Brady himself can now tell Gronkowski that there are no guarantees of getting back to the biggest game in sports -- even a 14-2 season in 2010 assured the Patriots of nothing -- and that every opportunity must be maximized. Given that reality, we can all sit here and claim with alleged certainty that we would play on Feb. 5 in Indianapolis, but none of us knows what Gronkowski knows or feels.

The good news, at the moment, is that he still has plenty of time to think about it.

And to wait.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

All season long, the issues infiltrated the mind as if part of some impossible brain teaser. The Patriots often looked inept against the pass. They didn't beat anybody. They don't run consistently. They can't throw outside the numbers.

And yet, Bill Belichick and his charges find themselves faced with a rather familiar predicament, only the New York Giants now standing between the Patriots and further immortality.

The imperfect season.

Flustered and confounded by a poised Baltimore Ravens defense that held Tom Brady without a touchdown pass in a postseason game for the first time since January 2002 - remember the time? - the Patriots pulled out a 23-20 victory in the AFC Championship yesterday in a game nothing short of thrilling. Maybe the Patriots got a little lucky. Maybe their defense is crystallizing at just the right time. Maybe they are destined to avenge the defeat that took place four years ago in the Arizona desert, where the Giants claimed a 17-14 victory in Super Bowl XLII that brought a devastating end to New England's attempt at an unprecedented 19-0 season.

A victory in two weeks will not rewrite history, but it will at least change it a little.

"It wasn?t always perfect," Patriots coach Bill Belichick fittingly told reporters following his team's win over the Ravens. "But [Patriots players] fought to the final gun and we came out on top."

Indeed, even now, it would be fair to ask the following question: just how have the Patriots pulled this off? During the regular season, the Patriots defense ranked 15th in the league in scoring, 31st in yardage and 28th on third down. The Patriots allowed 4.6 yards per rush (24th) and 13 rushing touchdowns (19th). And they did it all against a schedule stuffed with styrofoam peanuts, tissue paper and bubble wrap.

Until yesterday, in fact, the Patriots had not beaten a single team that finished the 2011 regular season with a winning record.

All together now: So what?

Of course, critics of the Giants would be wise to point out that New York finished the regular season at an astonishingly mediocre 9-7, though there is just one small problem: at the moment, head coach Tom Coughlin has his team playing better than just about anybody. In their last five games - all must-wins - the Giants have a claimed a 29-14 win over the New York Jets and a 31-14 victory over the Dallas Cowboys as well as postseason victories over the Atlanta Falcons (24-2), Green Bay Packers (37-20) and the San Francisco 49ers (20-17, in overtime, in last night's NFC Championship game.) This season, the Giants have toppled the top two seeds in the NFC (the Packers and Niners) as well as the top seed in the AFC (the Patriots), winning all three games on the road.

At their best, the Giants have all the elements to beat any team in football. They can run. They can throw. They have a dominating defensive line that can generate pressure without blitzing, allowing their linebackers and defensive backs to clog passing lanes and make life difficult for opposing quarterbacks.

And they have a coach in Tom Coughlin who has outwitted Belichick before.

But again, as we have learned in the past, all of this is nothing more than meaningless backdrop for a game that will stand on its own in less than two weeks.

If you are a Patriots fan - regardless of whether you embrace this second chance against the Giants - there is suddenly a great deal to feel good about. Ever since that loss to New York in Super Bowl XLII, New England's equilibrium has been disrupted. The Patriots have been skewed too heavily on the offensive side of the ball, too reliant on Brady, with whom almost all of their fortunes rested. For the last four years, New England generally has won the higher-scoring games and lost the lower-scoring ones. They have gone as Brady has gone. Until yesterday, New England had not won a regular-season game in which Brady failed to throw a touchdown pass since 2007, another instructive piece of information.

The last time Brady won a playoff game without throwing a touchdown pass was in 2002, when the Patriots won the Super Bowl. The last time they won any game in which he didn't throw a touchdown pass was in 2007, when they reached the Super Bowl. The obvious lesson is that one man cannot get you to the big game all by himself, no matter how accomplished, no matter how gifted.

Ask Dan Marino about this. Or John Elway. Heck, ask Peyton Manning, whose only Super Bowl championship came during a postseason in which he threw three touchdown passes and seven interceptions over four games while posting an aggregate quarterback rating of 70.5.

For that matter, ask Eli Manning, who now has taken his team to as many Super Bowls as his far more celebrated brother.

All of this brings us back to yesterday and the Patriots' ability to persevere despite, based on rating, the second-worst postseason game of Brady's career. (The other also came against the Ravens, in 2009) What we learned yesterday is that Vince Wilfork might mean as much or more to this Patriots team as Brady does, that Sterling Moore can make a difference, that BenJarvus Green-Ellis has his place, too. We learned that even teams like the Giants need help, most notably in the form of two turnovers by a punt returner (San Francisco's Kyle Williams) who single-handedly undermined the performance of a defense that is downright suffocating.

We learned, quite simply, that you don't need to be perfect to win a Super Bowl.

In fact, in some ways, the imperfect ones can be even more rewarding.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

If history is any indication at all, the AFC Championship almost certainly will go the distance. The New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens have played four times in the last five years, and not a single one produced a relatively easy Patriots victory.

That is why a win on Sunday would mean more to the Patriots than any win they have had in four years.

Here we are again, Boston sports fans, in that tense purgatory between victory and defeat. Remember what this feels like? Whatever the point spread, the outcome is in doubt this time. Beginning on Nov. 21, the Patriots have played a succession of inferior opponents that they absolutely, positively should have beaten, games that lined up on their schedule like a list of menial household chores.

Do the dishes. Fold the laundry. Get groceries. Pick up the dry cleaning. Take out the garbage.

But now the Ravens are coming, and we all know what Baltimore is capable of. At least we should. In 2007, with New England chasing an undefeated season, the final score was Patriots 27, Ravens 24 in nothing short of a great New England escape. In 2009, the Ravens were seemingly on their way in for a game-winning touchdown when Baltimore wide receiver Mark Clayton dropped a fourth down pass deep in New England territory of an eventual 27-21 Patriots win. Then came Baltimore's 33-14 dismantling of the Patriots in the divisional playoffs at Foxboro. Then came last year's 23-20 New England victory in an overtime game that marked the return of Patriots receiver Deion Branch.

Total cumulative score: Ravens 98, Patriots 91. New England won three of the four games, though all three victories effectively came down to the final possession.

Get the picture? Expect a close one. When these two teams have met, the games have been both competitive and combative, adjectives that would describe any worthwhile competition in just about any sport.

That's why we watch.

As usual, we all have our opinions on how this game will unfold. None of them mean a blasted thing. (For what it's worth, I like the Patriots to the tune of something like 27-23.) Based on recent history, there is every chance that Baltimore running back Ray Rice will rip up the Patriots on the ground as surely as Tom Brady could shred the Ravens through the air. Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco has had his moments as surely as BenJarvus Green-Ellis. Maybe Matt Light will deftly handle Terrell Suggs. Maybe Suggs will abuse him. Maybe the Ravens will get to Brady and maybe they will not, though it is likely that each sideline will make the necessary adjustments so as to keep at least some balance in check.

You see what we're getting at here? Don't be foolish by expecting a blowout on either side. The players and coaches on these teams are simply too good. When the Ravens defeated the Patriots in the playoffs two years ago, New England's receiving corps operated without Wes Welker (injured) and included such luminaries as Sam Aiken, Chris Baker and Julian Edelman.

For the Patriots, all of that makes Sunday's game an opportunity to prove that they are indisputably back, at least close to being the team they were at the beginning of this millennium. In recent years, for one reason or another, they have simply stalled. Brady got hurt. They lost to the Jets. They had a creampuff schedule. Every year has brought some obstacle the Patriots have been unable to overcome, regular season and postseason success failing to align at the same time.

If we're being honest about this, last week's win over the Denver Broncos really did not tell us much. How the Patriots performed was far more worthy of our praise than the outcome, particularly on defense. But we all know that Denver faced the Buffalo Bills in Week 16 and got mercilessly walloped by a 40-14 score, Buffalo's only win in its final nine games.

Is that the Patriots' fault? Of course not. They earned the No. 1 seed because they had no real lapses, finishing 13-3 and earning a favorable draw as a result. Had the Ravens similarly held serve against relative door posts like Jacksonville, Seattle or Tennessee, Sunday's game would be in Baltimore. Instead, it will be played here in New England, where the Patriots can secure their footing among the NFL's truly elite.

Years ago, when the Patriots were winning Super Bowls, New England's ability to perform at the critical moments is what separated the Patriots from everyone else. With time dwindling and broadcaster John Madden calling for the Patriots to take a knee in Super Bowl XXXVI, Brady drove the team down the field and set up Adam Vinatieri's game-winning kick. The Patriots' dynasty was instantly born, New England thumbing its nose at the doubters and second-guessers while winning three Super Bowls in four years.

In the nearly eight years since their last title, the doubt has slowly seeped back toward Foxborough, the Patriots losing to the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship, to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl, to the Ravens and Jets in the earlier rounds of the playoffs. Along the way, we have wondered whether the Patriots can beat the good teams when it matters anymore, wondered whether they can execute when it matters most, wondered if they can reclaim the aura and feeling that made them the most clutch situational team in football.

Only the Ravens now stand between the Patriots and the answer, between New England and a trip to the most celebrated event in sports.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

"This is nothing about ’09 or ’10. This is nothing about last week or last season or last month or 10 years ago. It’s about this week. The clock’s ticking. And every second that goes by, we’re one second closer to getting to that game.”

- Tom Brady during his weekly radio appearance on WEEI

* * *

Tom Brady generally has been at his best when the stakes have been highest, in the fourth quarter, in the final minutes. Maybe he is there now. Maybe Brady is in what amounts to the 2-minute drill of a historic career, one that has him among the greatest ever to play quarterback in the National Football League.

So now Brady is saying what we all have been saying for years – the clock is ticking – an acknowledgment that the incomparable quarterback of the Patriots sees what we all see. The road before him now is a great deal shorter than the one behind. Brady will be 35 at the start of next season, entering the second year of a four-year contract, and he once again has the chance to enter territory where so few have traveled.

With a win this weekend over the Baltimore Ravens at Gillette Stadium, Brady will earn the right to play in a fifth Super Bowl, a total matched in NFL history by only one other quarterback: John Elway. No one ever has played in six. No one has won more than four. If Brady can close his career the way he has closed so many games during his illustrious 12-year career, he could earn his place as the single greatest quarterback ever to play the game.

With more Super Bowl appearances than Elway. With as many (or more) Super Bowl victories than Joe Montana. With more winning on his resume than anybody in the history of the game at a position unlike any other in all of professional sports.

For Brady, it all starts anew this week, with this game against a Ravens team that battered him in the playoffs only two short years ago. In that game, Brady went 23 of 42 for just 154 yards. He threw two touchdowns against three interceptions. He was sacked three times. Brady’s quarterback rating of 49.1 was the lowest he has posted in 20 career postseason games, the statistical nadir of Brady’s existence as the most successful quarterback of his era.

Another season then passed without the Patriots winning a postseason game, and so a little more sand trickled through the hourglass of what has been Brady’s career.

Now 15-5 in his postseason career as a starter, Brady still has a great deal to gain on Saturday. We focus on the winning in professional sports, and maybe we do that to a fault. Trent Dilfer has won as many Super Bowls as Peyton Manning. Dan Marino never won one at all. The real accomplishments sometimes come from merely being in contention, from being in position, from an astonishingly high level of consistency that makes championships an annual goal and expectation.

Five Super Bowls? Think of that. With a win on Sunday, Brady will have played in more Super Bowls than all but nine franchises in NFL history. More than the Buffalo Bills or Minnesota Vikings or Chicago Bears. More than the Ravens, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets and San Diego Chargers combined. More than anyone really has the right to play in, particularly during an era of salary caps and parity.

During his time in New England, Brady’s metamorphosis has been extraordinary. He started out as a heady backup quarterback. He became an iconic figure. What the football world has now is a combination of Joe Namath (off the field) and Joe Montana (on it), a blend of looks, talent, intelligence and opportunity that has at once made Brady one of the most successful, identifiable and enviable people in the world. There has been good and bad to come from that. Brady undoubtedly longs for privacy. He is both revered and resented. He is part quarterback and part beau, spending a fair amount of his time as the lesser-known Mr. Bundchen.

On Saturday, against the overmatched Denver Broncos, Brady tied an NFL postseason record with six touchdown passes, five of them coming in a record first half. He threw the ball with conviction. At times, Brady’s focus seemed so great that the ball landed in his receivers hands as if it were a baseball snapping into a catcher’s mitt, the echo of an unmistakable pop all but reverberating throughout Gillette Stadium.

Today, just four days before the AFC Championship Game between the Patriots and Ravens, New England is now bracing for the sixth conference title game of the Brady-Belichick era. As always, Brady will need help if the Patriots are to advance. The beauty of team sports is that no one man can take a team to a championship, particularly in football, and Brady knows this as surely as anyone who ever has stepped behind center.

Now more than ever, in the wake of nearly a four-year span in Foxboro, Brady understands that opportunities like this are still rare.

Brady knows much more than the fact that the clock is ticking.

What he knows, for the first time in a long time again, is that the Patriots have a chance.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

For the moment, at least, there will be no talk of postseason losing streaks, of imbalance on the field, of bad draft classes and organizational decision making. The Patriots are back in the AFC title game for the sixth time in 11 seasons under coach Bill Belichick, and they are there thanks to a thoroughly dominating effort on Saturday night that may have been the team's best performance of the season.

Waiting for the Patriots now are the Baltimore Ravens in what will be a true clash of philosophies and cultures.

Less than 24 hours after the Patriots vaporized the Denver Broncos by a 45-10 score on Saturday night, the Baltimore Ravens defeated the pesky Houston Texans by a 20-13 count yesterday in Baltimore. The best offense in the AFC now meets perhaps the best defense, the Patriots instilled as 7-1/2-point favorites for the right to go to Super Bowl XLVI.

May the best doctrine win.

"I think Bill [Belichick] and [Tom Brady] and them know,'' said Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis, according to The Baltimore Sun. "They know they are going to definitely see a totally different team, just like we know we're going to see a totally different team. We're not the Denver Broncos. We're the Baltimore Ravens, so I think we're both up to the task.

"I think all we have to do is be the team that we are. We don't take the game from this week into next week. There's a 24-hour rule -- win, lose or draw. You're going to see a totally different Ravens team next week because we're going to be playing a totally different team in the Patriots. That's just the way the playoffs are."

In this modern-day NFL, of course, that is the way football is. The game changes week-to-week. No two games are ever connected. Just ask the New Orleans Saints. Or, for that matter, the Green Bay Packers.

Under the circumstances, this is particularly good news for the Patriots, who turned in the kind of defensive outing on Saturday night that fans have been waiting for all year. (At least since Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Tyler Palko passed for 230 yards against New England in Week 11.) The Patriots spent the large majority of the regular season running into one another on the defensive side of the ball, often making even ordinary quarterbacks look like a collection of surgeons and gunslingers.

But on Saturday? On Saturday, albeit against the erratic Tim Tebow, the Patriots looked rather, well, ferocious. New England's only real blip in the game came after a poorly executed throw by Tom Brady in the first quarter, after which the Patriots allowed a 24-yard touchdown drive. Excluding that, the Patriots allowed only 96 yards of offense during a first half in which they built an insurmountable 35-7 lead.

Following that score, which made the score 14-7, the Broncos managed just 29 yards on their next six possessions and never once crossed the 50-yard line. By the time the Broncos again saw the other side of the equator, their season had been scorched.

Now here's the obvious question:

Can the Patriots do something remotely as impressive to quarterback Joe Flacco and the Ravens? Will they need to? Can Baltimore slow down Brady, who will never be compared with T.J. Yates? Can the Patriots run on the Ravens the way Arian Foster did? Won't Baltimore running back Ray Rice be far more of a factor in this game than he was yesterday? Is there any real reason to compare this game with Baltimore's last postseason trip to Foxboro, a 33-14 Ravens victory in which the Patriots got steamrolled?

Again, for the moment, let's all agree on what the NFL playoffs have told us thus far: offense is as important as ever, but defense is hardly irrelevant. Of the top three offenses in the NFL this season, two (the Packers and Saints) were eliminated from the playoffs over the weekend while allowing a combined 73 points. New Orleans twice had the lead with fewer than two minutes to play and allowed a pair of touchdowns to a San Francisco offense that is hardly prolific. The Packers got their faces pushed in by a New York Giants club currently playing better defense than perhaps any other team in the league.

In their last four games, the Giants have allowed 12.5 points per game to the New York Jets, Dallas Cowboys, Atlanta Falcons and Green Bay Packers. During the regular season, those clubs ranked a respective 13th, 15th, 7th and first in the NFL in points per game.

The conclusion? Though hardly impossible, the Patriots are not likely to put up 45 points against the Ravens. They will need to stop Rice. They will need to mess with Flacco. And if the Patriots are able to do both, all while Brady performs at a level we have grown accustomed to seeing over the last 11 years, then the Patriots will be boarding plane in roughly two weeks with a single destination in mind.

Indianapolis.

And they won't be going to visit the Colts.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe columnist

Beyond tomorrow night's meeting with the Denver Broncos, the question remains: Can the Patriots win a Super Bowl with a team that is disproportionately reliant on both a quarterback and a high-flying offense?

And for that matter, can anyone?

So begins the Patriots' latest quest for the Super Bowl championship, a potential fourth title during the marriage of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. What we all want to believe is that those two men alone are enough. But if the Patriots are to win another championship in these next few weeks, they will have to do so in a manner with which they have not yet succeeded.

Or, perhaps, with a complete break from how they have performed thus far.

Statistics are for losers, as Belichick has often told us, so let's forgo any discussion here about the yardage the Patriots have allowed through the air, about turnover differential, about yards per rush or quarterback rating. Let's focus on the one thing that we all agree matters: scoring. In the Belichick era, only once have the Patriots finished the regular season with a defense ranked sixth or better (basically the top 20 percent) and failed to reach at least the AFC title game, that coming in the 2009 campaign that was Brady's first in the wake of knee surgery.

Of course, that was the year of fourth-and-2 at Indianapolis, after which the Patriots effectively became the 2011 New York Jets, their locker room deteriorating to the point of mutiny. That Patriots club finished sixth in the league in scoring offense and fifth in the league in scoring defense, but nonetheless ended up as Route 1 road pizza after the Baltimore Ravens ran them over in January.

To that end, here is where the Patriots have ranked in scoring offense and scoring defense during the regular season since the start of their golden era in 2001:

Maybe you glean something from that list. Maybe you don't. For every Patriots team that has failed (and we use that term very loosely) during the Brady-Belichick era, there is an explanation or excuse. By the time the 2006 Patriots faced Indianapolis in the AFC title game, for example, their second-ranked defense was battered and decimated. The 2007 club should have won the Super Bowl. The 2009 team lacked heart and character, blowing out bad teams like Tennessee (59-0) and Tampa Bay (35-7) while getting trampled by New Orleans (38-17).

In that latter scenario, you come out with a 2-1 record and a point differential of plus-66, but are you really that good?

What that list does tell us, if anything is that the Patriots have never reached the AFC title game with anything worse than a defense that ranked in the top six in the league in scoring, a trend that is likely to end following tomorrow night's affair against the heavy prohibitive underdog Broncos. And what it tells us, too, is that the Patriots have been able to protect a mediocre (at times) offense with a well-above average defense far more effectively than they have been able to do to the other way around.

NFL history, too, has shown us that you are more likely to win with a dominating defense than a dominating offense, for whatever reason. In 2008, for instance, the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl with an offense that ranked 20th in scoring. The 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers ranked 18th in scoring offense, the 2000 Baltimore Ravens 14th. Those clubs were every bit as stifling defensively during the playoffs as they were during the regular season, meaning the formula never really changed.

So, which teams have won with offense? The 2009 New Orleans Saints are the most obvious example, though it is important to remember that they were a domed team that played the entire postseason at home before facing the Indianapolis Colts (another domed team) in a Super Bowl played in Miami (Even then, the biggest play of the game was a defensive play). The 2006 Colts possessed a historically bad defense during the regular season, but Indianapolis was shockingly better during the playoffs, holding opponents to eight, six and 17 points in three of its four playoff games.

And before anyone suggests that Peyton Manning somehow protected those Indianapolis outfits, he didn't. In four postseason games that year, Manning had individual game ratings of 71.9, 39.6, 79.1 and 81.8. His overall rating was 70.5. He threw three touchdowns and seven interceptions. He had no more than one touchdown pass in any game.

That Colts team, without question, is perhaps the greatest hope for these Patriots, who seem as flawed defensively as any team during the Belichick era. But does that mean New England cannot play good defense when it counts? Certainly, time will tell. In New England last's two big wins -- at the New York Jets on Nov. 13 and against the Broncos last month -- New England totaled nine sacks and forced six turnovers. Neither the Jets nor the Broncos really qualifies as anything more than an average offensive team, but the Patriots defense made at least enough of a contribution in those affairs to help affect the outcome.

Starting tomorrow night, can the Patriots do the same? We will soon find out.

Based on recent history, after all, their chances at a championship may very well depend on it.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe columnist

The legend of Tim Tebow grows, only fueled by the happenings on Sunday in the Mile High City. But in his private moments this week, Patriots coach Bill Belichick is likely scoffing at what the Pittsburgh Steelers did to themselves, too.

It seems impossible to think Belichick will make the same mistake.

The NFL being the NFL, there is still the chance the Broncos will stun the Patriots and the football world on Saturday night by upsetting the Patriots at Gillette Stadium. But it is not likely. If the Broncos do somehow manage to pull off the seemingly impossible - the Patriots are overwhelming favorites - they will likely have to do it in far different fashion than the manner in which they beat the Steelers, at least on the offensive side of the ball.

Belichick, after all, is not likely to leave a makeshift New England secondary in 1-on-1 coverage the way the Steelers did, even if he refuses to say so.

"You know, each team plays their own defensive scheme against them, whether it’s Buffalo or Kansas City or Pittsburgh or whoever it is," Belichick told reporters yesterday when asked if Pittsburgh's defensive approach against the Broncos was at all revealing. "We have our scheme. We’ll take some things from each game that we’ve seen and try to apply it to what we do. We’re not them, they’re not us, we have different players - same thing with Kansas City, Buffalo and all that. There’s certainly a lot to be learned but at the same time, we have our own matchups and we’re different from everybody else."

Translation: We're not going to play it the way the Steelers did, but we wouldn't have done that anyway ... Oh, and the Steelers were dumb.

Check that.

The Steelers were downright astonishingly and historically stupid.

Professional football is obviously a detailed, complex game, but even in the most simplistic terms, what the Steelers did against the Broncos Sunday made no sense and reeked of arrogance. Against an inaccurate and inconsistent quarterback who sometimes looks as if he's playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, the Steelers left themselves vulnerable to the big play. Rather than make Tebow surgically maneuver his way down the field - something he has not proven he can do - the Steelers allowed Tebow to play a risk-reward game that Tebow exploited to the max.

Think about it: Tebow completed fewer than 50 percent of his passes - 47.6 percent, to be precise - but still threw for 316 yards while averaging 31.6 yards per completion. In basketball parlance, the Steelers packed the paint against someone whose only chance was to hit 3-pointers, which Tebow did.

Dumb.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

As we all know, statistics can be deceiving and are easily manipulated in any argument, but they're worth discussing here. For example, on all throws that traveled more than 40 yards in the air this season, the overall completion percentage in the NFL was 23.3 percent. On 257 attempts - an average of just eight per team, or one every two games - quarterbacks threw 23 touchdowns and 25 interceptions for an overall rating of 69.4. The bottom line is that the deep ball is generally an absurdly low-percentage and inefficient throw, even for someone like Tom Brady, who was 1 for 8 on such attempts.

The only team that was better than 50 percent on long throws during the regular season? The Cleveland Browns, who went 1 for 1.

Before Sunday, during his time as a starter, Tebow was 0 for 5 on throws of more than 40 yards. Most everybody(end) has a poor percentage on the long throws, which is why they are rarely attempted. Nonetheless, Tebow went 1 for 1 on such attempts Sunday, completing a 51-yard strike to Demaryius Thomas early in the second quarter (with the Steelers holding a 6-0 edge) because the Steelers left Ike Taylor isolated against Thomas on the left sideline.

Even then, Denver still had the ball on only the Pittsburgh 31-yard line. The Steelers could have stiffened and held the Broncos to a field goal. Instead, the Steelers went right back to the same defense, allowing a 30-yard strike from Tebow to Eddie Royal (in man coverage) two plays later, giving Denver a 7-6 lead.

After that, the Steelers kept making the same mistake over and over again, particularly on the intermediate routes where only the great quarterbacks make their money. In the process, they turned Tebow from a mediocre quarterback (at best) to a world-beater.

For what it's worth, here are Tebow's passer ratings on throws of different lengths both for his time as a starter and Sunday's win over the Steelers:

	Season	Sunday
1-10 yards	68.7	28.6
11-20 yards	74.5	129.5
21-30 yards	84.1	156.3
31-40 yards	78.9	39.6

Staggering, right? On throws from 11-30 yards against the Steelers on Sunday, Tebow performed (at least statistically) like Peyton Manning. So was that because Tebow learned to read defenses and developed uncanny accuracy between Week 17 and the playoffs? Or was it because the Steelers played illogically aggressive defense that left their corners on an island (especially Taylor) and allowed Denver receivers to run wild after the catch?

Go back and look at Tebow's 80-yard, game-winning throw to Thomas in overtime. The line of scrimmage is the Denver 20-yard line. Thomas catches the ball at about the 38- or 39-yard line. By leaving Taylor in 1-on-1 coverage - with no help in the middle of the field - all Tebow had to do was complete an 18- or 19-yard pass (against man coverage) to get an 80-yard touchdown. Had the Steelers just played zone, they likely would have given up an incompletion - or maybe a 5-yard run.

During the regular season, after all, Tebow's overall completion percentage of 46.5 ranked 34th among 34 qualifying NFL quarterbacks. Nice move, Mike Tomlin. You too, Dick LeBeau. Instead of letting Tebow fire the ball into the ground (or at your defenders) by playing a more crowded zone - particularly in an age when man-to-man defense is becoming virtually impossible - you opted to reward him with big gains for easier throws.

Knuckleheads.

Say this for Belichick: seemingly settled on playing a more aggressive, attacking defense this season that was intent on getting after the quarterback and relying on the coverage skills of Devin McCourty, he scrapped the plan early. Belichick decided right then and there that his defensive backs couldn't cover. The Patriots may not win a championship this year because their defense remains suspect against above-average quarterback play, but they also weren't going to win 13 games during the regular season with McCourty repeatedly getting beaten over the top.

So Belichick went to Plan B, in which he asked the Patriots to sit back against a succession of second-rate quarterbacks from Tyler Palko, Vince Young and Dan Orlovsky to Rex Grossman, Matt Moore and, yes, Tebow.

Which is why Belichick will do the same thing Saturday night, sacrificing the run and challenging Tebow to keep up with Brady by staying on the ground.

Even with a hobbled Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback, that is something the Steelers should have been able to figure out.

"He showed he's a quarterback in the NFL, case closed. They say he couldn't throw. They said we wouldn't be able to run the ball on them. We did that. I wonder what they're going to say next week."
- Denver Broncos running back Willis McGahee, commenting on the play of teammate and quarterback Tim Tebow following yesterday's playoff upset of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

The Patriots, presumably, will not make the same mistake the Pittsburgh Steelers made, which is to say the Patriots will not dare the Denver Broncos to throw the ball deep. Bill Belichick is far more likely to make the Broncos methodically drive down the field, asking Tebow to demonstrate the one thing he still has failed to show.

Consistency.

And so, the road to Indianapolis just became a little clearer, New England no longer required to deal with Pittsburgh this postseason as the pieces continue falling neatly into place. There is hardly any shame in that. On Saturday night, the Patriots seemed destined to face both the Steelers and Baltimore Ravens if they are to return to the Super Bowl this year. Now the Steelers are out of the picture, felled by a poorly conceived game plan and a young, unrelenting quarterback who continues to leave doubters in his wake.

Say this for the irresistible Mr. Tebow: the Steelers dared him to beat them deep - and beat them he did. Prior to yesterday, the mighty Pittsburgh defense had surrendered two pass plays all season of at least 40 yards. Yesterday, the Steelers allowed four, culminating in an 80-yard strike from Tebow to Demaryius Thomas that ended Pittsburgh's season on the first play of overtime.

In fact, Tebow's gains through the air yesterday looked a little like a Powerball ticket: 21, 51, 30, 58, 6, 40, 13, 6, 15, 80. Add in a 32-yard interference penalty on the human top known as Ike Taylor and Tebow's 316-yard passing day actually becomes a 348-yard performance, no matter Tebow's completion percentage or throwing mechanics.

Indeed, with those numbers, the Broncos hit the lottery.

Jackpot.

The Patriots will be a far more complicated challenge for the Broncos, if for no other reason than a New England offense guided by Tom Brady. The Patriots scored 41 points in a victory at Denver last month and are not likely to stall the way the Steelers did yesterday. Tom Brady's left shoulder aside, he is far healthier than Ben Roethlisberger is, which is why New England has been installed as the favorite by 13 1/2 points, give or take.

Let's say that again: depending on the specific oddsmaker, the Patriots are bigger favorites in this game than they have been in any postseason affair since Super Bowl XLII. They are clearly the superior team. Add in the fact that New England is playing at home coming off a bye, and the Patriots should absolutely, positively be hosting the AFC Championship game in Foxborough on Jan. 22.

If that's presumptuous, so be it. The Patriots went 13-3 this season and were the No. 1 seed in the conference. The Broncos went 8-8, the worst record among all playoff participants. Were it not for the fact that Denver plays in the anemic AFC West, the Broncos would have been home watching yesterday.

If you believe in earning your way to the playoffs, maybe they should have been.

Of course, we all know the story line with this Patriots team, which seems (on paper) terribly imbalanced. This year, especially, New England was borderline historic on both sides of the ball. (One good, one bad.) Since the start of the 2008 season, the Patriots have really been no more effective or successful than the Atlanta Falcons, who have basically averaged 11 wins per season. Both teams went 0-2 in the postseason right up until yesterday, when the Falcons threw up on themselves yet again while managing two points - yes, two - in a 24-2 defeat at the hands of the New York Giants.

That made Atlanta 0-3 in the playoffs under quarterback Matt Ryan, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound NFL prototype who now has one fewer postseason victory on his resume than the unconventional Tebow does.

In New England, once again, the standards have long been different. Due to the success they shared together in the early part of this millennium, Belichick and Brady are regarded as failures if they end up with anything less than a championship. They wouldn't be who they are if they didn't regard themselves the same way. Now the Patriots are set to begin the postseason anew with what looks like a seeming layup, a relatively mediocre Denver team that just upended one of the two remaining clubs to defeat the Patriots this year.

In the NFL this January, the field is now down to eight.

The Steelers are dead.

And the ball, quite literally, is about to be placed squarely in the Patriots' hands.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

Despite not having won a playoff game since January 2008, the Patriots will be a second-round playoff participant for the second consecutive year this season. Let's give them credit for that much. The NFL bye is, in fact, a first-round playoff victory, a reward that allows the Patriots the right to stand by and watch others fight for their lives this weekend.

With that in mind, here is a look at the four NFL playoff games scheduled this weekend with particular attention placed on the Patriots' obvious interests:

SATURDAY
The matchup:Cincinnati (9-7) at Houston (10-6), 4:30 p.m.

The line: Houston by 3.

Impact on the Patriots: If Cincinnati wins, the Patriots are assured of facing the Bengals in the divisional round next weekend. If Houston wins, New England is guaranteed the winner of Sunday's game between Pittsburgh and Denver (with Houston traveling to Baltimore in the divisional round).

Overview: The fact that Vegas odds-makers have placed this line at three points should tell you plenty when you consider that home-field advantage is allegedly worth three points. Effectively, the gambling world sees this game as a dead heat - which it may very well be. The Texans and Bengals played in Week 14 at Cincinnati, Houston emerging as a 20-19 winner on a last-second touchdown pass from T.J. Yates.

Houston looked like as legitimate a threat as anyone else in the AFC this season until it lost both defensive lineman Mario Williams and quarterback Matt Schaub to season-ending injuries, which makes running back Arian Foster an obvious focus entering this game. If the Texans can run this weekend, the Bengals are likely cooked. (Cincinnati had one of the better run defenses in the NFL this year, allowing just 3.9 yards per rush (sixth).) But if the game ends up in the hands of the two rookie quarterbacks - Yates and Andy Dalton - we could very well the same kind of nip-and-tuck affair that took place in Week 14.

For the Patriots, the indisputable, one of the better scenarios would start with a Cincinnati win. If that happens, the Patriots immediately would know their first-round opponent while creating the likelihood that Pittsburgh would travel to Baltimore for the divisional round. That would ensure tha Pats facing only the Ravens or the Steelers -- and not both -- on the road to the Super Bowl.

SATURDAY
The matchup: Detroit (10-6) at New Orleans (13-3), 8 p.m.

The line: New Orleans by 10 1/2.

Impact on the Patriots: If you're really thinking big, the Patriots' obvious concerns in the NFC come down to one thing: the best possible matchup in the Super Bowl. And while Drew Brees is a good quarterback wherever he plays, the simple truth is that he is otherworldly indoors. With this year's Super Bowl scheduled for Lucas Oil Stadium (indoors) in Indianapolis, you should be rooting for the Lions.

Overview: Everything in this game points to a shootout at the Superdome, where the Saints were 8-0 and averaged an NFL-best 41.1 points per game at home this year. (That is not a misprint.) New Orleans defeated the Lions by a 31-17 score at the dome in Week 13, with quarterbacks Brees and Matthew Stafford (both 5,000-yard passers with 40+ touchdown passes) combining for 750 yards in the air.

That said, the point spread for this game seems a little high. If the Saints win, New Orleans is guaranteed a trip to San Francisco in the divisional round. If the Lions win, Detroit will go to Green Bay. Regardless, the NFC has the far deeper field in these playoffs, with five of the six conference participants ranking in the top 10 of the league in points scored. (The San Francisco 49ers were 11th).

For the Patriots, determining a best-possible matchup in the Super Bowl is tricky. Do the Pats want a shootout, making matchups with Green Bay and New Orleans most desirable? Or do they want a pairing with a defense-first team like the Niners? Regardless, nobody should want to face Brees in a dome, where he threw 37 touchdown passes against eight interceptions this year while posting a rating of 118.7.

SUNDAY
The matchup: Atlanta (10-6) at NY Giants (9-7), 1 p.m.

The line: New York by 3.

Impact on the Patriots: Deep down, given the outcome of Super Bowl XLII four years ago, every Patriots fan would love another crack at the Giants in the big game. That said, New York is the only NFC team the Patriots faced this year -- and the Giants ended the Patriots' home winning streak in the process. Tough call here, particularly when one considers the potential impact the Giants could have on the field. (More on this in a moment.)

Overview: On paper, at least, the Falcons have the better defense, having allowed fewer points per game while being more stingy against both the run and the pass. Assuming health, both clubs have fairly balanced offenses, though Eli Manning seemed to jump to the next level this year, giving the Giants a more explosive passing attack.

All of this is why the Vegas odd-smakers have seemingly declared this game as much of a draw as the Bengals-Texans tilt.

That said, the Giants can be scary-good when at their best. New York's defensive line can create major problems for opposing teams, something evident in the Week 17 beating of the Dallas Cowboys. If the Saints defeat the Lions, a New York victory would send the Giants to Green Bay - and there may be no team in the NFC more equipped to upend the Packers. Green Bay defeated the Giants by a 38-35 score in Week 13, but it was basically Green bay's toughest test of the year.

Translation: If you want the Packers out, the Giants may be your best bet.

SUNDAY
The matchup: Pittsburgh (12-4) at Denver (8-8), 4:30 p.m.

The line: Pittsburgh by 8 1/2.

Impact on the Patriots: Again, by the time this game kicks off, the Patriots already may have their answer. Still, in the dreamiest of dream scenarios, the Patriots could get to the Super Bowl by facing both Denver (in the divisional round) and Houston (in the AFC Championship). But is there really any shot of that happening?

Overview: Ben Roethlisberger is banged up and the Steelers are without running back Rashard Mendaenhall -- and yet Pittsburgh is still favored by more than a touchdown on the road. The obvious reason is the inept Denver offense, which ranked just 25th in the NFL in scoring and managed just 18.5 points per game with Tim Tebow at quarterback.

Here's the problem: in the last month, with Roethlisberger at quarterback, the Steelers scored just 30 points in three games. The Steelers should be able to beat the Broncos on the strength of their defense alone -- with almost anyone at quarterback -- but the Steelers offense has been very shaky in recent weeks.

While we've spelled out the best-case scenarios for the Patriots, the worst-case scenario, too, is obvious. New England's toughest road to the Super Bowl includes games against Pittsburgh and Baltimore, a scenario that would start to develop with victories by the Texans and Steelers this weekend. And if Pittsburgh can win while keeping Denver away from Roethlisberger, the Steelers could pose a significant threat to the patriots in the divisional round next weekend.

During the regular season, of course, the Steelers defeated the Patriots at Heinz Field in a 25-17 game that was hardly so close.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Staff

What is at stake now, at least to some degree, is the identity of your New England Patriots. Over the last four regular seasons, the Patriots have won more games than any team in the NFL. And yet, despite that, New England does not possess a single postseason victory.

Beginning on that fateful night in the Arizona desert, in fact, the Patriots seemingly have gone from the Team of the Decade and the model organization in all of professional sports to paper tigers - and in one fell swoop.

In the words of Captain Jack Ross, the Marine prosecutor played by Kevin Bacon in "A Few Good Men": These are the undisputed facts of the case.

Whether all of that changes this month remains to be seen, particularly following a regular season in which the Patriots went an impressive 13-3 and once again established themselves as the top seed in the AFC. Like last season, when New England finished 14-2, the Patriots won their last eight games while lighting up the scoreboard (36.4 points per game) as if they were in Times Square. Quarterback Tom Brady was borderline superhuman along the way, amassing 19 touchdown passes against just two interceptions.

And yet, because of last year, the Patriots had relatively little to gain during the regular season. Short of another 16-0 record or a dramatic improvement by the defense - neither of which occurred - there was going to be relatively little to take place during this regular season to make us feel better about the Patriots' chances for another Super Bowl title.

As a matter of perspective, here are the six NFL teams to have won 40 or more regular season games over the last four years:

New England 48-16
New Orleans 45-19
Pittsburgh 45-19
Baltimore 44-20
Atlanta 43-21
Green Bay 42-22

Of those six clubs, three have won Super Bowls during the same span: the Packers, Saints and Steelers. The Ravens have won at least one playoff game in each of the last three seasons, going a combined 4-3 and once reaching the AFC title game. And then there are the Patriots and Falcons, who have gone winless in the postseason.

Think of that. When you get right down to it, the only difference between the Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons over the last four years has been an average of roughly one win per regular season.

Now there's a measuring stick for you. Bill Walsh's 49ers. Jimmy Johnson's Cowboys. Mike Smith's Falcons.

Yippee.

All of that brings us back to the here and now, to the Jan. 14 game that will take place between the Patriots and Cincinnati Bengals, Steelers, or Denver Broncos. A victory will put New England in the AFC Championship Game. A loss will cement the Patriots' place as a phantom contender. The standards in New England are admittedly different (and completely out of balance) since the Patriots won three Super Bowls in the early part of this millennium, but there is no disputing the fact that the last three Patriots seasons have ended in extraordinarily disappointing fashion.

The defeat to the Giants in Super Bowl XLII? Oh, it was an obvious killer, the Patriots coming within a whisker of immortality. But in 2008, 2009 and 2010, the Patriots' postseason balloon never ever got off the ground.

With regard to this regular season, let's give the Patriots their due. Winning 13 games in any NFL season is a difficult trick, particularly with a defense ranked 31st in the league in yardage, 31st in pass defense, 28th in third down efficiency, 24th in average rushing yards per attempt. Head coach Bill Belichick went into this season with designs of a more aggressive, pressure defense, but was forced to abort the plan early due to the relative ineptitude of his secondary.

To his credit, Belichick adjusted on the fly. (The personnel decisions are another matter, but that is a story for another time.) Belichick cut out potential bad seeds and/or disruptions with Albert Haynesworth and Leigh Bodden, investing in a more coachable and hard-working group that includes an array of undrafted free agents and castoffs. The Patriots have played hard and demonstrated commendable grit, coming back from deficits against Philadelphia, Denver, Miami and Buffalo, the first two of those games on the road.

As Bill Parcells long ago taught us, you are what your record says you are.

At least during the regular season.

So where does this all go from here? Excellent question. Belichick and Brady still have some quality time left together, which makes the last few years all the more frustrating. Too often, it has felt as if the Patriots have been spinning their wheels, unable to support a Hall of Fame coach and a Hall of Fame quarterback with a legitimate supporting cast. In the aftermath of the lockout, there is every chance that the rest of the league has slipped back to the Patriots this year more than the Patriots have ascended to the next level, though that is largely irrelevant so long as the Pats end up where we want them to be.

And so where, exactly, is that? The Super Bowl is an obvious choice. But more than winning another title - the fourth of the Belichick-Brady era - what is more important for the Patriots this postseason is to show growth again, to get to the AFC title game at a minimum, to show that they belong right there with New Orleans, Green Bay, Pittsburgh and Baltimore among the truly elite teams in the current NFL.

And to prove that they really are not at all anything like the Atlanta Falcons.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Staff

The No. 1 seed in the AFC entirely in their grasp, the Patriots return to the field tomorrow against the Miami Dolphins. The Houston Texans already have lost again. The Pittsburgh Steelers are likely to be without Ben Roethlisberger. Seemingly nothing stands between New England and a divisional playoff date at Foxboro on the weekend of Jan. 15.

Which brings us to this:

Is this game with Miami causing anyone at least a little anxiety?

Don't look now, folks, but the Miami Dolphins are not the complete doormat on which the Patriots wiped their feet in a season-opening, 38-24 win. Miami quarterback Chad Henne passed for a whopping 416 yards in that game - the concerns about the Patriots defense this year have been there from the start - but the greater mismatch that night was between the Patriots offense and a Miami defense was supposed to be among the better units in the league.

Know what has happened since? During a season that began with an 0-7 start and led to the dismissal of head coach Tony Sparano, Miami has begun playing like far more people expected, steadily improving to the point where the Dolphins now have allowed fewer points per game (on average) than all but four teams in the league.

Let's say that again.

For the season, Miami ranks No. 5 in the league in scoring defense. And since Nov. 1, Miami's average of 14.1 points allowed per game ranks behind only the San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Steelers in all of football.

Admittedly, with the Patriots, defense has been a far greater problem and concern this year, which makes the Miami game worth watching on multiple levels. Buoyed by the brilliance of Tom Brady - QB12 has 15 touchdown passes and just one interception in his last six games - the Patriots have been able to make up for any and all defensive deficiencies. The Patriots now have scored 30 or more points in 19 of their last 22 regular season; in those contents, they are a sterling 18-1 (the only loss came at Buffalo this year).

By contrast, in the other three games - all played this season - the Patriots are 1-2. They lost at Pittsburgh. They lost to the New York Giants. Their only victory came against the Dallas Cowboys, an affair in which Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett foolishly put the ball back in Brady's hands with 2:31 play.

All of this brings us back to the Dolphins, who will be the last above-average defense New England will face until the postseason.

Here's the point: when factoring in New England's last three playoff losses with its three toughest games this year - the Steelers, Cowboys and Giants - the formula for beating New England seems clear. The Patriots rarely win a game with their defense, plain and simple, which suggests that any and all discussion about the Patriots' Super Bowl chances should not focus solely on the New England defense.

It should focus on the opposing defense, too.

As such, here's the question we all have to ask ourselves as the Patriots approach the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs: what do you believe in? Do you believe New England can win with offense, the way New Orleans did in 2009? Or do you believe in at least some representative measure of defense, as most traditionalists would argue? Of the four participants in last year's conference championship games, all four ranked among the top six in the NFL in scoring defense. A year earlier, Super Bowl participants Indianapolis and New Orleans ranked a respective eighth and 20th.

Last year, when the Patriots lost to the Jets in the divisional round, much was made of the underperformance of the New England offense despite the fact that the Jets had one of the best defenses in the league. Does that make any sense at all? A year prior, Baltimore's strength was similarly its defense. And yet, everyone reacted with surprise when the Ravens battered Brady and rolled to a 31-14 win.

The reason we all did that, perhaps, is because we knew the Patriots did not have a championship-caliber defense. Presumably, we all know the same now. And so in that respect, the question becomes not whether New England can stop anyone at a critical juncture - they can't - but whether the Patriots can score enough to keep their defense out of critical situations.

The Dolphins, of course, will not be participating in the postseason this year. But in the modern NFL, their defense qualifies as well above average, which presents a good challenge for the Patriots this week. Unlike Week 17 opponent Buffalo, which ranks 27th in the league in scoring defense, the Dolphins of today (unlike the Miami team of Week 1) should present at least some challenge to a New England offense that has averaged 35.8 points per game, albeit against a succession of teams that currently rank 21st (the Jets), 22nd (Chiefs), 19th (Eagles), 30th (Colts), 16th (Redskins) and 24th (Broncos) in scoring defense.

What that tells us, it seems, is that the Patriots can shred a mediocre or poor defense.

What we still do not know, entering Miami, is whether the Patriots can shred a good one, at least well enough.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

The AFC is all but there for the taking, only the Pittsburgh Steelers are now standing between the Patriots and the top seed in the AFC. The skeptics will remind you the Patriots were the top seed in the AFC last year. The realists will say it is time to give them their due.

Facing deficits of 6-0 and 16-7 on a day in which they also lost their best defensive player of the season, the Patriots rumbled to a 41-23 victory over the Denver Broncos yesterday at a rabid Sports Authority Stadium. Coupled with losses by both the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans, the victory moved New England thisclose to the top seed in the AFC pending the outcome of the game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and San Francisco 49ers tonight in San Francisco.

Oh, the Patriots are still flawed, as we all know. But give them their due.

"This was a real good win for our football team. Give the players all the credit," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said after the victory. "They did a real good job [yesterday] against a good football team. We fought back and made plenty of plays to win in all three phases of the game.

"I’m just really proud of the way we responded to the challenge. They stepped up and played good football today. Really happy about the win."

And he should be.

Let's be honest. Quite some time has passed since the Patriots played a game with this kind of intensity, particularly on the road. You have to go all the way back to the Nov. 13 win at the Jets. Since that time, the Patriots have played one tomato can after the next, only the game at Philadelphia amounting to some real kind of potential challenge, right up until Eagles quarterback Vince Young started missing receivers as if he were playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

The Eagles all but rolled over in that game, dropping to 4-8 the following week at Seattle before being resuscitated by the return of Michael Vick.

But this game? This game had far greater potential to unravel. Denver entered having won six straight and 7 of 8 to become the feel-good story of the NFL. The Broncos then scored on their first three possessions (two touchdowns) and ran for an astounding 167 yards on 15 rushes in the first quarter, a mind-blowing average of 11.1 yards per carry. Denver's second scoring drive was a four-play, 82-yard sprint down the field during which the Broncos had gains of 29, 22 and 32 yards.

Along the way, the Patriots lost defensive end Andre Carter, presumably for the season.

So what did the Patriots do? They responded by scoring the next 27 points of the game, albeit with some help from a Denver outfit that couldn't hold onto the ball and committed seven penalties, a number of which were extremely ill-timed. The most damning sequence for the Broncos came at the end of the second quarter and the beginning of the third, when the Broncos gave up the football and field position with astonishingly undisciplined play and decision-making, allowing the Patriots to open a bulging 34-16 lead.

Given Denver's generally plodding offense, that was too much for the Broncos to overcome, particularly while Tom Brady was slicing up the Broncos for 320 yards and a 117.3 passer rating.

Still, as much as we all know the shortcomings of the Patriots defense, let's deal in facts. Denver's first fumble, while soft, resulted when Patriots defensive lineman Ron Brace knocked the ball from a falling Lance Ball. The second came when Mark Anderson similarly punched the ball free from Tebow's grasp. Only the third Denver mistake - a muffed punt at the end of the first half by a brainlocked Quan Cosby -- was an egregious giveaway, the kind of mind-numbingly stupid decision for which a player should be benched.

In the end, the point is that the Patriots defense isn't really good enough to stop anyone on downs. The best we can hope for at this stage, particularly without Carter, is for the Patriots to cause a turnover or two and hope that the offense capitalizes.

And the Patriots did.

Now, whether the Patriots can repeat this same type of performance after January 1 is anybody's guess because, as we all know, even the NFL regular season only means so much. The Patriots went 14-2 last season to earn the top seed, then spit up on themselves in a home playoff loss to the New York Jets during the divisional round. Pending the outcome of tonight's game between Pittsburgh and San Francisco, the Patriots are the top seed in the AFC and would face either the Jets, Broncos or Baltimore Ravens in the first round. And we all know that the Ravens and Jets are the two teams New England has opposed (and been defeated by) in the postseason.

And so, what are we to make of this Patriots team with regard to the postseason? That is obviously still impossible to say. But with home games remaining against Miami and Buffalo, the Patriots yesterday faced what was the toughest remaining regular season game on their schedule. Under adversity, they stood up, held their ground, and pushed back. By consequence, they put themselves in the best possible position entering tonight's game between the Niners and Steelers, the latter of whom now stand as the only team that block New England's road to the No. 1 seed.

That alone won't win the Patriots a Super Bowl this year.

But based on what we have to grade them on, it is a notable achievement worthy of recognition.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Staff

For all of us, thankfully, the hype will end at kickoff. Then the Patriots and Denver Broncos will play a game with potentially significant postseason ramifications in which the teams will match both strengths and weaknesses.

This week, for obvious reasons, most all discussion surrounding this game has centered on the quarterbacks. Tom Brady is coming of a game that featured a sidelined explosion during which he openly shouted with a coach. Tim Tebow, meanwhile, continued to turn losses into wins. Here, then, are five questions worth considering when New England and Denver are actually on the field.

1. Which team needs this game more?

If you believe the theory that the more desperate team generally wins, the Broncos may have a slight edge here. But only slight. Denver (8-5) leads the AFC West by a game over the Oakland Raiders (7-6) and by two games over the San Diego Chargers (6-7), and a victory (particularly if coupled with an Oakland loss against Detroit) would move Denver to within a whisker of the division title and, thus, a playoff berth.

The Patriots, meanwhile, will be in the playoffs -- at least barring a Red Soxian collapse. The question is where New England will be seeded. To finish with a top-two seed and, thus, a bye in the first round, the Patriots may need to win out. At the moment, the Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, and Houston Texans are all effectively tied atop the AFC with 10-3 records, Baltimore holding the divisional edge over the Pittsburgh Steelers (also 10-3, but a wildcard team) by virtue of two head-to-head victories over the Steelers during the regular season.

If the Patriots slip up this week, they could end up playing three playoff games instead of two. And they could end up opening at home on wildcard weekend against a team like the New York Jets.

2. Can the Patriots stop the run?

Patriots coach Bill Belichick has told us time and time again that stats are for losers -- and maybe they are. But for a team that was once stout against the run for the majority of the Belichick era, the Patriots have sprung some leaks over the last few years. Since the start of the 2009 season, counting playoffs, New England has allowed 4.3 yards per carry, the 13th-worst figure in the league. Maybe that number means nothing. Maybe it means more than we think it does.

Last week, for example, the Washington Redskins gashed the Patriots for a whopping 170 rushing yards and a 5.0 average. Last year, Cleveland ran for a stunning 230 against the Patriots. In New England's last two playoff games -- both losses -- the Patriots have surrendered 354 yards and five touchdowns on the ground.

At the moment, as one would expect, Denver has the best rushing attack in the NFL with an average of 156.2 yards per game. Denver's average of 4.7 yards per carry places the Broncos sixth. If the Patriots cannot sufficiently stymie the Denver running attack one way or another -- certainly, a big lead would help -- the next area to watch could become more worrisome.

Which brings us to...

3. What's worse -- the Denver passing offense or the New England passing defense?

Or maybe we should refer to them as the resistible force and the moveable object.

Tebow's heroics certainly have been newsworthy, but his passing performance in the first three quarters of all games has bordered on the inept. In eight games as a starter, in the first three quarters, Tebow is 43 for 111 (a 37.8 completion percentage) for a measly 520 yards. (That translates into 65 per game.) His passer rating is an abysmal 65.1, which is lower than Brady's completion percentage (66.1) for the year.

Of course, when the game has been on the line, Tebow has magically turned into Joe Montana, posting a 60.9 completion percentage and a rating of 107.9. Nonetheless, the fact exists that he has been a dreadful passer for roughly 75 percent of every game in which he has played.

The issue, naturally, is that the Patriots haven't been able to cover anybody this season. New England has allowed more passing yards than any team in the league. The Patriots have allowed opponents to complete 63.7 percent of all passes, a number that is fourth-worst in the entire NFL. And based on opponent passer rating, New England has one of the 10 worst defenses in football.

If the Broncos can pass on the Patriots, anybody can.

4. Is Denver's defense really that good?

For all the hype the Denver defense has been getting, here's an amusing truth: since Tebow became quarterback, the Patriots have actually allowed fewer points per game (19.9) than the Broncos have (20.3). Admittedly, Denver's numbers are skewed by games against Detroit (45 points allowed) and Minnesota (32), but the truth remains.

So why are people talking so much about the Denver defense? Because in five of the last eight games, the Broncos have allowed 15, 10, 13, 13 and 10 points. Of course, those performances have come against Miami, Kansas City, the New York Jets, San Diego and Chicago. All but San Diego have had average to poor quarterback play and the Chargers were in the midst of a six-game losing streak.

For the year, Denver actually has allowed more passing touchdowns (22) than the Patriots have (21). Based on defensive passer rating, the Broncos rank as the fourth-worst pass defense in the NFL; the Patriots, by comparison, are ninth.

5. Is Matt Prater really a secret weapon?

After making a 59-yard kick to force overtime last week against Chicago, Prater made a 51-yarder to win the game. That leaves little doubt about the strength of Prater's leg, particularly in the altitude of Denver, but a more detailed look at his performance this year reveals quite a bit of inconsistency.

Of the 32 NFL kickers who have attempted at least 15 field goals this season, Prater ranks a dreadful 30th in percentage of kicks made. And before anyone suggests that Prater's misses have been the result of long kicks, last week's performance made him 3 of 4 this season from 50 yards or more, a conversion rate of 75 percent that actually puts him in the top 10 from that distance.

Translation: Prater has made the long kicks and missed many of the short ones.

How that translates on Sunday remains to be seen, though it does leave Denver with one obviously favorable scenario. If the game is close late, Prater has the leg to take pressure off Tebow because he can put the Broncos in field goal range by just reaching the New England 40.

Assuming, of course, the Broncos can get that far.

"He's great for the NFL. The kind of young man he is and the values he represents, I think it's terrific. We just want to bring him down to earth this weekend."

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

What we can all agree on, indisputably, is the magnitude of the Tim Tebow story. In just eight short weeks, Tebow has helped transform the Denver Broncos from doormats to potential division champions, all while tearing down an array of preconceptions and stereotypes.

But in the end, with regard to football, only one question really matters:

Do you believe in Tebow?

Or, perhaps more importantly, do the powers that run the Broncos?

For the moment, of course, none of that really matters to Bill Belichick and the Patriots, who travel to Denver this weekend for a meeting with Tebow and the Broncos in Week 15 of this NFL season. New England is 10-3. Denver is 8-5. The Broncos have gone 7-1 since Tebow became the starting quarterback, triggering dramatic changes in Denver's offense and mindset, skeptics morphing into believers as if they had borne witness to a true miracle.

With Tebow, of course, the spirit is always part of the story, though this really does not have anything to do with God or religion. Between the sidelines and hashes, this has far more to do with the things we can see vs. the things we cannot, the measurable vs. the immeasurable, particularly in a sports world of expanding metrics.

For example: Tebow has completed just 48.5 percent of his passes this year. But he wins.

In the first three quarters of his eight starts, Tebow has a quarterback rating of 65.1. But he wins.

In six of Tebow's eight starts, the Broncos have scored 18 points or fewer and averaged 15.2 points per game, a number that would rank in the bottom six of the NFL. But he wins.

And so back to the original question, albeit in different form:

Is Tebow's success sustainable?

Confession: I am not a Tebowite, a decision based purely in football, at least as it pertains to the NFL. Admittedly, I find his insistence on using the NFL as a religious or social "platform" to be annoying, but that is an entirely different discussion. As it relates to the NFL, I have never been a believer in run-first quarterbacks in general, a contention I once nearly sacrificed for, of all people, Vince Young. Mobility is certainly an asset at the quarterback position, but only as an alternative for when things break down. The pass should not be a backup plan.

Steve Grogan? He was a better quarterback at the end of his career than at the beginning, after his legs were gone. Michael Vick? His best season came last year, when he attempted (to that point) more passes per game than at any other stage of his career. Steve Young? During the peak years of his career, he was running three or four times a game, tops.

Meanwhile, from Young and Kordell Stewart to Daunte Culpepper and Doug Flutie, most every quarterback to boast mobility as his greatest asset has ended up somewhere other than in the huddle.

All of which brings us back to Tebow.

A few weeks ago, in a moment of pure candor, Broncos executive vice president of football operations John Elway made an ill-advised remark with regard to Tebow's performance. (That is to say that Elway told the truth.) Asked whether he felt the Broncos were any closer to having their quarterback of the future, Elway gave a simple succinct, "No." The remark enraged the Tebowites (though not Tebow himself) and further fueled the debate over what really matters in sports.

Is it solely talent? Or is it also character, competitiveness and leadership, all of which Tebow possesses in wholesale quantities?

Here's what Elway knows: that success in the NFL is short-lived unless you can throw the football with consistency, something Tebow has never done. Without question, Tebow's throwing ability seems to be improving, and his fourth-quarter passing numbers as a starter this season are eye-popping (60.9 completion percentage, 107.9 rating). What nobody seems to know is whether those numbers are the result of an uptick in Tebow's focus or more conservative defense, a chicken-and-egg argument for which there may be no real answer.

In any case, the Broncos are now changing their tune with regard to Tebow, at least publicly. Elway, for one, said earlier this week that he hopes to work with Tebow during the offseason, something he was deprived of last year amid the lockout. Meanwhile, ESPN football guru Chris Mortensen quotes an anonymous Broncos source today as saying that the club will commit to Tebow as its starter next year if the player continues to show improvement and takes the team to the playoffs, which is to say that the Broncos would not exhaust a high-round draft pick on another young quarterback.

What happens between now and then, of course, remains anybody's guess. And so as the Broncos decide whether to further invest in Tim Tebow - whether to believe - the same question exists for football followers everywhere.

Would you?

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

Tom Brady is the greatest player in the history of the New England Patriots, a quarterback so accomplished that we compare him with Joe Montana. But as Brady heads into the final years of his career, we cannot help but wonder if he has now inherited a little bit of Dan Marino, too.

The Patriots are still on course this morning following a 34-27 victory over the Washington Redskins yesterday, and we can all continue to debate where the Patriots are headed this season with a defense comprised of castoffs and misfits. New England is in a nip-and-tuck affair with Baltimore and Houston for the top two spots in the AFC playoff field, and the Patriots will claim one of the top two seeds if they win the remaining games on their schedule.

In the meantime, maybe it's time to wonder if the Patriots are becoming as Brady-centric off the field as they are on it.

Sorry folks, but there is no defending Brady for the outburst directed at coach and de facto offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien on the sideline in the fourth quarter of the win over the Redskins. Had Randy Moss pulled the same stunt, we would be spending much of today burying him for such petulance. Brady threw a horrendous interception on a pass intended for Tiquan Underwood when he could have sealed a victory, then went to the sideline and threw a tantrum to go along with it.

Tom Brady vs. Tiquan Underwood. Now there's a fair fight. One man has three Super Bowl rings and more than 39,000 career passing yards while the other has 10 career catches and not a single touchdown. Who's Brady going to blame next, Stephen Gostkowski? Zoltan Mesko?

And here's the real kicker: everything about the throw was putrid. The decision. The execution. Brady carelessly tossed it up there as if he were feeding Manute Bol in the low post.

Then he blamed someone else.

So much for the Patriot Way.

With that in mind, let's give O'Brien some credit here. If you read colleague Greg Bedard this morning, you know that Brady went to the sideline and gave an earful to both Underwood and receivers coach Chad O'Shea in the immediate aftermath of his blunder. To his credit, O'Brien came to the defense of both men, responding with such fury that Brady retaliated with a crystal clear "No (expletive)!" that hardly required the expertise of professional lip readers.

Fine. In professional sports, arguments happen all the time. The games are emotional, the competition can get intense ... yada, yada, yada. But Underwood wasn't the only receiver chastised by Brady yesterday -- Wes Welker and Deion Branch also heard about it after miscommunications -- and one can't help wonder if Brady has grown more stubborn and spoiled with each passing year of his career.

Remember two years ago, when Brady drew the wrath of linebacker Ray Lewis after lobbying with officials for a roughing the passer call in a game against the Baltimore Ravens? Yesterday, Brady smugly applauded when Redskins linebacker London Fletcher was called for a personal foul, delivering a hit to Brady as the quarterback slid to the turf.

In all of those instances, the message is the same.

You can't do that to me. I'm Tom Brady.

Maybe this is why Brady has appeared on a list of the most disliked players.

Here's part of the problem with the Patriots over the last few years: for guys who continuously preach the concept of team, Brady and coach Bill Belichick have garnered a disproportionate amount of the attention and responsibility. Brady and Belichick are now perhaps the only chance the Patriots have at another Super Bowl, if for no other reason than the fact that the Patriots have been stripped of talent on both the roster and coaching staff.

In that way, let's give O'Brien some credit. Good for him for taking Brady on. As we learned the NFL documentary on Belichick, "A Football Life," the Patriots recently have seemed like a one-man show on the administrative level. The scene of Belichick doing all the talking in one meeting with his coaching staff spoke volumes, not a single member of the staff looking comfortable enough to offer an alternative viewpoint.

Meanwhile, by contrast, Belichick seemed quite receptive to the offerings of his quarterback when Brady suggested an addition to a play as the two sat at Belichick's desk discussing that week's game plan.

Belichick took a role in defusing the tension between Brady and O'Brien that existed yesterday, but he should have been right there alongside O'Brien airing out his bratty quarterback.

To his credit, Brady yesterday took blame for his actions on the sideline, though that hardly makes them excusable. At this stage of his career, Brady should be getting more mature and responsible, not less. Instead, he seems to be getting more like Marino, one of the most accomplished passers in league history who never won a thing because he never understood the most simple rule of team sports.

It's not about you.

It never was and it never is.

By Tony Massarotti, Globe Columnist

Disregard the final five minutes. For that matter, disregard the fourth quarter. The Patriots fell asleep for the final minutes of yesterday's 31-24 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, but the end of the game told us nothing about who the Patriots are and where they are going.

Truth be told, the first three quarters told us nothing, too.

The Pats are 9-3 this morning and once again possessors of the top seed in the AFC, but they have very little to gain in the final weeks of the 2011 season. New England should encounter some resistance in the final four games of this season - at Washington, at Denver, both Miami and Buffalo at home - but there should be nothing to prevent the Patriots from going 13-3 and earning a first-round bye when all is said and done.

That said, two questions endure from yesterday's affair.

First, is it really necessary for the fans at Gillette Stadium to boo Adam Vinatieri? (Weak.)

Second, is it really necessary for Bill Belichick to have the Patriots throwing out of the no-huddle offense holding a 31-10 lead with under seven minutes to go in the fourth quarter?

In the latter instance, nothing Belichick can say justifies the decision. Belichick likes to answer every question about his strategic choices by saying that he is "just trying to win a game," but throwing out of the no-huddle with under seven minutes to go in the fourth quarter was downright stupid and indicated no such thing. At that stage of the game, the Patriots should have been trying to milk the clock. Instead, Brady took a needless hit on a third-and-13 play that led to a Patriots punt, after which the Colts scored.

With the score then 31-17, Brian Hoyer entered the game. Does that all make any sense? Up 31-10, Belichick subjected Brady to a needless hit. Up 31-17, he put Hoyer in. That certainly suggests that Belichick recognized the error of his ways, but he never should have had Brady throwing at that stage of the game in the first place.

Sometimes, the man's ego just gets in the way.

Let's hope the Bobby Valentine acquisition does not prove to be the Red Sox' biggest move of the offseason. With the manager now in place entering the winter meetings, the Red Sox have needs to address on their pitching staff, both in the starting rotation and the bullpen. Presumably, there will be a substantive acquisition in there somewhere.

Under the circumstances, with closers going at inflated prices, one can only wonder if the Sox might be far better served to put their money in a starter, specifically Mark Buehrle. If relievers like Heath Bell and Ryan Madson command three- and four-year deals, the Sox would seem far better off committing three years and even $45 million to someone like Buehrle, who has a picturesque delivery and a long history of health.

In any case, here's what you shouldn't want to see: trepidation. So the Sox have made some bad free agent signings. So what? Does that mean they're all bad? If the Red Sox can pull off a trade for a young, healthy pitcher, so be it. If not, they need durability on that staff, and Buehrle is about the closest thing to a sure bet on the market.

The Red Sox don't need to abstain from the free agent market, folks. They just need to make more prudent decisions.

I mean, in retrospect, was giving John Lackey five years just utter foolishness or what? The man had a history of elbow problems. And everyone knew it.

Let's all pump the brakes on the Bruins for a moment. As extraordinary as this 13-0-1 run has been, this is still just the regular season. Roughly a year ago at this time, the Bruins were struggling enough that Cam Neely came out and seemed to put Claude Julien's job on the line, at which point the Bruins awoke and began playing with greater urgency.

Of course, the Bruins won the Stanley Cup. And while that title has changed everything with regard to the perception of the team and organization, let's not put these bruins in the same discussion with the Bruins of the late '60s and early '70s just yet. Those Bruins were stacked with Hall-of-Fame-caliber talent, and we simply do not know whether this club has quite the same staying power.

That said, the Bruins certainly are positioned to have one of the great eras in their history, which is something we said a year ago. (You can look it up.) The signing of David Krejci further stabilizes a deep and talented roster that can skate, hit, score and play defense, meaning the Bruins can play any style of game, against basically any opponent, anywhere and anytime.

Still, tonight's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins bears close watching, for obvious reasons. These are two of the last three Stanley Cup champions and, currently, the top two seeds in the Eastern Conference. The injuries to Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin last year meant the Pens were absent from Boston's path to the championship, and we still do not know if the Bruins can defeat the Penguins when it matters.

Of course, we also don't know if the Penguins can defeat these Bruins, who seem fortified and emboldened by their Stanley Cup championship.

With all due respect to the most loyal Celtics fans, the window closed in Game 7 against the Lakers in June 2010. Anyone who believes the Celtics can win the title this year by simply adding some small pieces around Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo is missing the point. The Celtics are getting older and slower while the Bulls and Heat are getting better and deeper, which is why Danny Ainge must act aggressively.

Nobody ever said Rondo was a bad player. The question isn't even whether he's a great player. The question is whether he's a franchise player, the kind an organization can build around the way the Celtics built around Garnett, the indisputable centerpiece of the Celtics' latest championship runs. And it is difficult to think of Rondo in those terms when he is a career .622 shooter at the free throw line coming off a season in which he shot .568.

As a result, Ainge owes it to himself -- and, more importantly, the Celtics -- to explore any and all deals for Rondo, who remains his best bargaining chip. If Ainge can get something closer to a franchise player back, even for the short term, he must consider it. The Al Jefferson-for-Kevin Garnett swap was built on a similar principle, and nobody has complained about the loss of Jefferson for quite some time now.

Granted, Garnett is still here, albeit in a reduced capacity.

But is there anyone who still wouldn't have made that trade?