Ooh, that must have been a brutal offensive meeting Monday at Gillette Stadium, the afternoon after the Patriots barely managed to slip past the Bills in Buffalo, 56-10.

The players probably tiptoed to their seats in trepidation, knowing what was coming, seeing that Bill Belichick was seething, steam coming out of his ears, his face as red as those old jerseys the Pats used to wear, back in the days when they were hard pressed to score 56 points in a season.

If only we could have had one of those secret sideline cameras that J. Edgar Belichick employed against the Jets hidden away somewhere in that meeting room, we might have caught the coach ripping Tom Brady — much to the dismay of that adoring, gridiron expert, Andrea Kremer.

“I can’t believe you missed Moss in the end zone! He was wide open coming across the middle and you threw too far in front of him! Horrible! Terrible! Inexcusable! We’ll never beat anybody if you can’t complete that pass!”

It would have been pointless to point out that Brady threw four touchdowns passes to Moss, who now has a league-high 16 TD catches. Or that Brady, in just 10 games, already has thrown a career-high 38 scoring passes.

Instead, Belichick was more likely to note the drop that Moss had early in the game. Yes! You saw it! The ball hit him right in the numbers, but Moss, instead of watching it all the way into his raptor-like hands, looked upfield an instant too soon and failed to make the catch.

And Donte Stallworth had one, too! Another drop! Goodness gracious, can’t anybody here play this game! What’s wrong with this team?

The Patriots’ pursuit of perfection is persistent and perpetual.

They don’t merely want to finish the season with a perfect record — 19-0, including their fourth Super Bowl triumph in seven seasons — and with a host of scoring records in hand, they also want to play the perfect game. And not just one week — every week.

Consider the way Belichick treated them the week before going to Buffalo, when the Pats were coming off their bye week, having rallied in the fourth quarter to win their previous game against the then-undefeated Colts in Indianapolis.

“He tore our heads off Monday,” Moss said. “He tore our heads off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. He put that humble pie casserole on us.”

And the Pats gobble it up. When Belichick doles out the team’s weekly serving of humble pie, the players’ plates had better be as clean as their record.

If some daring New England player had been so bold as to point out that the Pats had scored touchdowns on their first seven possessions last Sunday night against the Bills, they surely would have been reminded of the eighth possession.

“What happened then, huh? Well? How ‘bout it? Just when you start to think you’re pretty good, that’s the kind of stuff that happens! You get complacent. You don’t score. You can never have enough points against a team like the Bills, with J.P. Losman at quarterback.”

That’s the way Belichick is. And that’s why the Patriots are as good as they are.

Can’t you picture him walking up behind Da Vinci, just as the painter was applying the final brushstroke to the Mona Lisa?

“She’s not smiling,” Bill says.

“You should talk,” Leonardo replies, defensively. “It’s not as if you walk around with a big grin on your face.”

“My personality is what it is,” Belichick says, pulling relflectively on the gray hood of his cassock. “Or isn’t, as the case may be. In any case, I think you should give Mona just the hint of a smile. Trust me. It’ll be better.”

Bill has that kind of genius.

It may have been Guillermo Belichick who insisted that Michelangelo paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

“You want me to do what?” we can almost hear the startled artist say. “Nobody’s going to look up there! Let’s just throw a coat of whitewash over the plaster and get out of here!”

“No,” Guillermo insists. “If you’re going to do the job, do it right. Now get up on that scaffolding and start painting.”

Beethoven had just written the final notes on his fourth symphony when he turned to his buddy, Wilhelm Belichick, and said: “That’s it. I’m finished. No more music.”

“But you’re not done,” Wilhelm intoned. “But you’re not done.”

“Hmm…bum, bum, bum, bum,” hums Ludwig. “But you’re not done. Bum, bum, bum, bum.

“Why, you’re right,” says Beethoven, sitting back down to begin what would be his Fifth Symphony.

Belichick has a recipe for humble pie that Emeril would envy. Now he’s a working on a recipe for success that even Don Shula would have to appreciate. Tonight, he’ll add Eagles feathers to the mix.

jdonalds@projo.com