Judging from the impassioned response to last Sunday’s perceived nose-thumbing at New England Patriots fans (seriously, the only document in history containing more capital letters than the ones in my e-mail inbox are minutes from the first AFL-CIO convention), you’ve got this all figured out.

It’s over. Pull Irving Fryar’s steak knives and Victor Kiam’s book of “101 Even More Tasteless Jokes About Female Beat Writers” off Foxboro’s Wall of Infamy and make room for another Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Hey, I’m sold. Let’s skip the next two games, consider the third Super Bowl title in four seasons a foregone conclusion and fast forward to the important discussion.

Are the Patriots an official dynasty? As in Ming, Tang, Auerbach, Carrington, Belichick.

By today’s watered-down standards, there’s a simple answer, one my 7-year-old, who isn’t old enough to remember Drew Bledsoe can provide.

Duhhhhhhhhhh.

Today, the word dynasty’ is empty as its cousins momentum and adversity. Really, is there any term in the sports lexicon that hasn’t been fed through the hype machine a hundred times and stamped with an ESPN logo?

Let’s not exhaust ourselves trying to keep that one word pristine, not when we’re all guilty of perverting others. I’ve heard Adam Vinatieri called a hero without seeing footage of him at the fallen Twin Towers. I’ve read that the ball taking a hellacious hop through Bill Buckner’s wickets was tragic, though I’ve yet to hear that more than 230,000 people died instantly that night.

And I’ve been informed that Randy Moss pretending to drop trau and give an entirely new meaning to “end zone” at Lambeau Field was appalling and disgusting. Insane talk, at a time when glancing at the front page of a newspaper usually persuades me to skip breakfast.

If you’re willing to grant those labels, you’d better be willing to concede that a modern team doesn’t need nine consecutive world championships to be dubbed a dynasty.

Winning three out of four titles in today’s National Football League constitutes more than a dynasty. It’s a minor miracle. You need an owner with bottomless pockets, an impeccably prepared coaching staff and 53 millionaires all rowing in the same direction, willing to check their egos at the dock. Try that without God, karma or the universe on your side.

Fact is, since NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and AFL counterpart Lamar Hunt concocted this crazy idea to pit two teams in a be-all, end-all, midwinter classic, only one other franchise has won three Super Bowls in four years. The Dallas Cowboys were such a machine from 1992 to ’95 that a muppet named Barry Switzer led the final championship campaign.

So if New England wins Super Bowl XXXIX, it will have topped the two teams most of us associate with a run of greatness in modern times: the San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Steelers. The ‘Niners won five Super Bowls but needed 13 years to do it. The Steel Curtain snagged back-to-back titles twice, sandwiched around a two-year lull. Neither ever batted 3-for-4.

In a post-expansion sports world permissive of free agency, a dynasty is simply a franchise that’s so good you associate them with an entire decade.

Free Love: Packers.

Disco: Steelers.

Reaganomics: 49ers.

Dot-com: Cowboys.

Dubya: Patriots.

Indeed, even at halfway, the race to be Team of the Double-Zeroes is over. Even if the Patriots (I said if, an utterly conditional and hypothetical word, so please don’t shoot) lose tonight or Feb. 6, they still should win two or three more titles before the rest of the NFL catches up.

Tom Brady, Corey Dillon, Tedy Bruschi, Richard Seymour, Vinatieri and coach Bill Belichick all are in their prime. The front office has circumvented the salary cap by drafting brilliantly and dealing shrewdly, accumulating depth when it shouldn’t be doable.

The Canadiens, Celtics and Yankees are the only true sports dynasties? Phooey.

Not only are the Patriots a dynasty, they’re probably the final one. Stop drawing impossible parallels to a bygone epoch and enjoy the totalitarianism while it lasts.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is [email protected].