11:02 AM EST on Tuesday, January 25, 2005

PITTSBURGH -- Tom Brady, looking like a movie star, and having played like a superstar, had stars in his eyes like a little kid at Christmas after the Patriots had stunned the Steelers, 41-27, Sunday night in Pittsburgh to earn a second straight trip to the Super Bowl, their third in four years.

Journal photo / Bob Breidenbach

Patriots QB Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick found it easy to smile after the presentation of the AFC championship trophy Sunday night in Pittsburgh.

Brady has been the Most Valuable Player in the Patriots' first two Super Bowl victories, and has a perfect 8-0 record in postseason play. But after throwing for two touchdowns in a dominant and dazzling performance by the entire New England team, he looked like a rookie who had just won his first NFL start.

"It's the same excitement when you win," he said. "I don't think you ever take this for granted."

The Patriots certainly didn't, and their fans most definitely shouldn't.

This is a truly special team, a remarkable team, an amazing team, composed of selfless, hard-working, dedicated, smart -- and, oh my, yes, talented -- players, under the tutelage of a brilliant coaching

staff, headed by a man who, after improving his postseason record to 9-1, is being compared to the legendary Vince Lombardi.

"It doesn't get old," Pats coach Bill Belichick had said prior to coming to Pittsburgh to take on the Steelers, who had won 15 games in a row and given up fewer points than any team in pro football this season.

Every year is new, with a very different set of circumstances and challenges.

How could anyone -- player, coach, fan, even critical and cynical media members -- not be excited, thrilled, or ecstatic about what this Patriots team has accomplished?

"It's been a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifice and commitment, by a lot of guys," Brady said Sunday night. "It's a great team to be a part of."

Success isn't easy to maintain in any sport, where complacency, egos, contractual problems, injuries, and any number of unpredictable things can turn a champion into an also-ran.

But ongoing success is particularly difficult in the parity-driven NFL, especially in this salary-cap era that has created the heyday of free agency in football.

Yet the Patriots have pulled it off, have continued to be, as Brady said, a great team, and now are heading to Jacksonville with a chance to defend their title and become only the second team in NFL history to win three Super Bowls in the span of four years.

The magnitude of what they've already accomplished should not be taken for granted, shouldn't be treated as "old hat."

Consider the difficult double they've pulled off in the playoffs.

First, they had to beat the high-scoring Colts and their record-setting quarterback, Peyton Manning -- no easy task, even in Foxboro -- and then they had to go to Pittsburgh and take on the Steelers, who were determined to end a three-game losing streak in conference championship games on their home field.

The Patriots not only defeated both of those very good teams, they dominated them.

The Colts led the NFL in scoring this season, averaging more than 32 points a game. The Patriots held them to just three.

The Steelers led the NFL in scoring defense, yielding an average of a little more than 15 points a game. The Patriots scored 41.

That's a big part of what makes these Pats so impressive -- it's not just that they're good, it's that they're so much better than the best teams in their conference.

In retrospect, the tipoff that this could be a very special season came in St. Louis.

Soundly beaten the week before in Pittsburgh, their NFL-record, 21-game winning streak snapped emphatically by the Steelers, 34-20, on the afternoon of Halloween, the Pats seemed headed for a second straight setback in St. Louis.

Pro Bowl cornerback Ty Law had broken his foot against the Steelers -- an injury that, as it turned out, would sideline him for the remainder of the season. That left New England without both of its starting corners, since veteran Tyrone Poole already was sidelined by injury.

So the Patriots were going up against the Rams -- renowned for their explosive passing game, especially playing indoors on artificial turf -- with a cobbled-together secondary composed of undrafted rookie free agent Randall Gay; the colorfully named Earthwind Moreland, hastily thrown into the fire after being signed off the practice squad; wide receiver Troy Brown, playing defensive back for the first time in his 12-year NFL career; and, at safety, Don Davis, a 31-year-old journeyman inside linebacker.

And yet the Pats won. Easily.

It would be easy for New England fans, having grown accustomed in recent years to the Patriots winning, to take it all for granted.

In which case, they would do well to ponder the fragility of success, to remember the fine line between winning and losing. Let them look at the Steelers, who were 15-1 this season. The Steelers, who have lost the AFC Championship Game on their home field four times in the last 11 years -- the last two times to the Patriots.

New England now is 5-0 in AFC championship games, 3-0 under Belichick. Steelers coach Bill Cowher is 1-4. The Patriots' opponent in Super Bowl XXXIX, the Eagles, finally made it to the Super Bowl after losing the last three years in the NFC Championship Game.

If that doesn't make you appreciate the difficulty, the enormity, of what the Patriots have done, then you deserve to be sentenced to watching the Super Bowl in a tiny room, on a small-screen, black-and-white TV with Randy Moss.

"We're excited," Brady said, "to represent New England in another Super Bowl."

It is exciting. It doesn't get old. And it certainly shouldn't be taken for granted.