Does that mean New England's problems are gone now, that the worst is behind them? No, no, no. But it means the Patriots are not to be dismissed, at least not yet, at least not now.
"I’m proud of our team. We had a lot of players step up," Patriots coach Bill Belichick told reporters following a victory that was easily the Patriots' best of the season. "We had a good week of practice, the preparation was good.... The credit needs to go to the players."
Admittedly, as we have all acknowledged before during the historic union of Belichick and Tom Brady, the standards are different. In the big picture, regular seasons wins generally do not mean all that much. The Patriots at their peak won three titles in four years and came within a whisker of the only 19-0 season in NFL history, and so the priorities in Foxborough changed a long time ago. The question is not whether the Patriots can win a Super Bowl, but rather how many.
Or, more specifically, how many more.
For these Patriots, who now possess a 6-3 record and indisputable control of the AFC East, the questions still exist. New England played the Jets last night with a cast that included Jeff Tarpinian and Sterling Moore, such unknowns that even NBC could not properly introduce them. While Vince Wilfork was reminding us that he came from the U and Jerod Mayo reinforced that he came from Tennessee, Tarpinian and Moore strolled into the picture like a tandem of silent, unknown strangers, a pair of mug shots that might as well have been on the post office wall.
So what did that no-name Patriots defense do? They held the Jets to 16 points and sacked Sanchez five times, intercepting him twice. They played, if nothing else, well enough to support Brady and resurgent New England offense, which had been held scoreless in the second half of its two previous visits to the Meadowlands during the reign of Rex Ryan.
