08:35 AM EDT on Wednesday, July 28, 2004

BY TOM E. CURRAN
Journal Sports Writer

Journal file photo / Mary Murphy The Patriots have embraced the monkish teachings of head coach Bill Belichick, on the sideline during last season's game against the Giants at Gillette Stadium. For him, there is no end to effort, no rest after success. Work is the reward.

FOXBORO -- It's no coincidence that Ricky Williams retired just days before the Miami Dolphins were set to begin training camp. Or that, in each of the last three preseasons, newly acquired veteran offensive linemen have left the Patriots days after workouts began.

Late July is the most psychologically daunting time of year in the NFL. Players who have been poolside, barside and familyside for months are about to dip themselves into a vat of pain for a six-month stretch. For what? A paycheck? Glory? Duty? Fun? None of which is guaranteed.

Sisyphus exists in every coach and player in this league. Like the mythical Greek figure, they are duty-bound to roll a boulder uphill until it nearly reaches the top, then, after it rolls back down, they're compelled to start all over again.

"A few days after the Super Bowl, you might wake up and say to yourself, 'Man, it's all over. We did what we wanted to do. We reached our goal,' " said the Patriots' Larry Izzo.

Then what?

"You can't think that every single player shows up at training camp happy," said sports psychologist Richard Lustberg, who's based in New Jersey and has observed and lectured on group sports psychology. "Not everyone is dying to be there. Some are playing to merely earn a living. Outside, we assume they all love the job, but not everyone is hyped."

For the New England Patriots, the psychological situation is even more layered. They are Super Bowl champions, yes, but for that what do they get? A ring, the winner's share, parades and photo ops. Riding shotgun to all that is the fleeting respect of the media and every opponent's very best punch all season. And lurking behind it all is the specter that, if they don't win the Super Bowl again, they will have failed to defend.

And if one doesn't think the weight of that is significant, consider this: Not

only have the last five Super Bowl champions failed to repeat, all except the 2001 Baltimore Ravens failed to even make the playoffs the following year.

The Patriots have been to the mountaintop. And they have seen the promised land. What dangling carrot will prompt them to begin the chase up the hill again? How hard is it to put the following season behind and begin rolling the rock again?

"I have definitely seen teams that had success who had difficulty (turning the page during the next season), and that's not good," Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said late last week. "A lot of it takes care of itself. For instance, when you pass the brink of having an edge to being overconfident, another team will usually come along and put everything in perspective in a hurry. But whenever players or coaches start to take the attitude of, 'We'll be there when it counts, don't worry about things, there's no urgency,' it usually doesn't get straightened out, and when you try to, it doesn't happen."

In the coming weeks, it will be fashionable to wave the 2002 Patriots season around as proof that a Belichick-coached team didn't have the belly to defend.

He disagrees.

"I don't think we played or coached well enough (in 2002)," he said. "The year before, we executed better at critical times. When the bar was raised (in 2002), we didn't rise with it. We went from 11-5 to 9-7, we missed the playoffs on the third tie-breaker, and we had the same record in the division and against the NFC, but we just weren't good enough. In the end, that's all it was."

And now?

"We're a much better football team," he said. "Forget all the psychology and all that (stuff), we're just a much better football team than that one. The 2001 team that won, it was a miracle to win a championship with that team. And you see how it turned out in 2002, when everyone was gunning for us."

Dr. Richard Lustberg, a sports psychologist, believes that the group mentality of training camp and the single-mindedness of Belichick and his leading players help the Patriots' chances of meeting the daunting task of defending their title.

"Teammates feed off each other," he said. "At various times, group contagion takes over. You really need a coaching staff and a core group of players that remains hungry. When you've smelled the roses, you want to smell them again. And there is also the ego piece of the puzzle. There is a burning desire to compete. Even when you are drained, competing is the job, and professional athletes are trained competitors."

The mindset that Belichick has spawned in the organization also works in New England's favor. The notion of living moment to moment, play to play, game to game. The belief that you don't look up to see the peak, you look down to see where your boot falls next.

It's ironic that these men who have the means to live lavishly have embraced Belichick's monkish teachings when it comes to football. There is no end to effort, no rest after success. Work is the reward. Glory is fleeting, like blades of grass on the wind. You do what you do as well as you can because that is what you do. Not for the biggest contract in the league or the most endorsement money or to be on the box of a video game.

Dozens of times in the next few weeks, Belichick will say that the team is in a process that began weeks ago in offseason conditioning. "Brick by brick," he'll say the season is built. Each player has to "establish his level of performance" no matter whether he was a Pro Bowl player or a practice-squad player last year.

"It's a good strategy for building success because it helps each individual get better progressively," said Izzo. "When you've got 53 guys you've put together who have established themselves and a level of play in camp, then you take it into the season and one week at a time; each player has to play to that level and then improve it."

In the year of a title defense, that's even more vital.

"We know what it is," said Richard Seymour. "Each year, everybody fights for the ultimate goal. That's why you play the game and strap it up every week. When you break it down, early in the season is like the first quarter of a game. Anybody can be good then, but in the fourth quarter, that's when the elite players step up and make plays. When you're tired, some guys want to quit or won't perform well under pressure. Some guys can't cut it. But we've been a team that, when it's crunch time, we step up and embrace it when other teams crack. We love the challenge where you have to go out and prove you're champions again. That's something we welcome with open arms."

Last year, said Izzo, is fading in the rear-view mirror.

"For me, there was a sadness it was over," he said. "It was a really enjoyable season, rolling off 15 wins the way we did. It was the most fun a lot of guys had been around. When it was over it was like, 'Jeez, I want to keep playing.' There is a post-celebration downer of, 'It's all over, we did what we did and here we are,' but then comes the anxiousness again. You can't dwell on what you accomplished last year because it does you no good except to realize that it affects how other teams play you. You are the bar now. Teams will test themselves against you, your team. Teams think, 'Let's see how good we are, and if we can beat them that means we're pretty good. You face that every week, and that means you have to raise your level. Looking back to last year is pointless."

Training camp begins at Gillette Stadium tomorrow. The rock is at the bottom and the mountain awaits.