They haven't been self-impressed. They are on the brink of going 14-2. It's been a successful defense of their NFL crown.

10:23 AM EST on Tuesday, December 28, 2004

By TOM E. CURRAN
Journal Sports Writer

FOXBORO -- They'll always have New York.

And St. Louis. And Indianapolis. And Baltimore. And all those other games that prove the 2004 Patriots already have defended their Super Bowl title with all the efficiency, nastiness, selflessness, resourcefulness and passion anyone could expect.

They've been targeted. They've been physically pummeled. They've been put to extreme tests mentally. They've been forced by injury to be supportive and understanding but demanding teammates. They've not been self-impressed. They are on the brink of going 14-2. It has been a successful defense.

Before the season began, head coach Bill Belichick posted a list of Super Bowl participants dating back to 1999 that didn't reach the playoffs the following season. The list was long. The 2002 Patriots were on it. Above all the teams were four words: "Don't believe the hype."

"I don't think our players bought into the hype, and I give them a lot of credit for that," Belichick said yesterday when asked whether this season has been a successful one. "They've rolled up their sleeves. They've come to work. They've gotten their hands and elbows and knees dirty. They've approached the season and every game in a very businesslike, tough-minded way. It hasn't always worked out perfect. We haven't always played great. But they've had a hard-nosed approach to each game, and that's the way I'd like it to be."

This is no epitaph. Three weeks from now, the Patriots will host a playoff game at Gillette Stadium. If they win that one, their title defense becomes more successful. It would get progressively better with each win after that.

But the story of this team is best told by two games, both coming after losses.

The Patriots' win at St. Louis came a week after the harsh loss in Pittsburgh that ended the NFL-record 21-game winning streak. The Patriots were leaking fluid in the secondary, playing

for the first time without their starting corners. They bottled up the dynamic Rams. That win defined this 2004 team, gave it an identity that was separate from the one that won the Super Bowl. Sunday's win over the Jets cemented that legacy.

The Jets thought the Patriots were ripe for the taking on Sunday. Given the way New York was playing, the demoralizing loss New England had six days earlier, the injuries the Patriots had, the playoff implications a Jets win would bring, and the fact the game was in New York, the Jets assumed victory.

"Everyone came into this game feeling that we were going to send New England home miserable," said Jets running back Curtis Martin, "and they made us miserable."

This is where the Patriots and teams that are merely good diverge.

One of the greatest traits of these Belichick-Brady-Bruschi Era Patriots is that they presume nothing. There are no foregone conclusions. The "W" isn't in the books until the scoreboard says 0:00 and there are more points under the word "Patriots" than there are under the name of the team they are playing. That approach has served them well in their last 67 games, and 53 times the number under their name has been bigger than the number under the name of the other guys. On the 14 occasions it wasn't, that didn't happen because they mailed it in.

The Jets presumed on Sunday. Presumed to think the Patriots -- damaged and downtrodden -- were an easy mark.

But as a perceptive friend said yesterday: "You don't mess with your big brother when he's got a black eye. He's probably not in a good mood."

New York found that out on Sunday.

Belichick was asked yesterday whether Sunday's win was his team's best performance of the year. "Taking everything into consideration, it probably was," he said.

"Everything" includes the unsettled personnel situation, playing on the road, playing after a Monday night game during a holiday week, playing a hot team and playing very, very well.

It is -- so far -- the signature game of this season. The question now is whether another game can supplant it.

"Ifs" hover over the Patriots right now. "Ifs" that could prevent them from being considered favorites to repeat as Super Bowl champions. If the "ifs" break for the Patriots -- if Ty Law comes back and plays like Ty Law, if Richard Seymour's injury isn't season-altering, if the offensive line deals well with the athletic front-seven attacks of their probable playoff opponents --they are more likely than any team to be celebrating on the turf in Jacksonville on Feb. 6.

If the "ifs" break the other way, the Patriots probably will walk off a field profoundly disappointed at some point in the near future.

If that happens, what will it mean?

It's natural to believe that the Patriots will have come up short if they don't win every game they play in the upcoming playoffs. And there's a measure of truth to that. They are playing now to win the Super Bowl. To lose before they do that would mean a goal would be left unachieved. But there's a canyon's gap between "failing" and not reaching a final goal.

Even though this team won a championship last year, there is no carryover from that. It is its own entity now.

"Every season is different," said Belichick. "They'll never be the same. To try and equate years -- you can't do that. This year is its own year. There are too many things that are different. We have to deal with the elements of this year. It will never be the same."

The 2004 Patriots are defined now. Who they were, how they played, what they represented is in the books. What happens from here will alter how quickly they'll be remembered. But it won't change how they should be remembered.