The regular season was great, unforgettable even. You know and I know 16-0 means nothing right now. More importantly, Bill Belichick knows this, and if his players didn’t know it, he’s drilled it into their heads a thousand times over in the last week.

The Patriots came away from the regular season with three far more important things than a perfect record – a bye week, home-field advantage and better health than they’ve had in any of their three Super Bowl runs.

If you are a Patriots fan, you have three very good reasons to be confident right there. They have been missing from Bill Belichick’s formula for playoff success the last two years. Fatigue from a round-trip cross country flight and two straight weeks of football contributed to their second-half collapse in Indianapolis last year. Having to play in the thin-aired frenzy of Denver spelled doom two years ago. And let the record show that the absence of Rodney Harrison from the secondary during both years destabilized an already suspect unit.

Now, the Patriots are rested, Harrison and virtually everyone else not named Rosevelt Colvin is expected to suit up Saturday night, and the spoiled denizens of Gillette Stadium will be rousted from their regular-season slumber and give David Garrard and, presumably, Peyton Manning what for in the freezing Foxborough air over the next two weeks. Don’t forget, the Patriots haven’t lost a home playoff game since the Carter Administration.

With those elements, literally and figuratively, in place, there can be no excuses this year. Tom Brady has the weapons.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are the first victim. They’re big, they’re physical, they have the ball control offense that can supposedly beat up their aging linebackers, and they are somehow supposed to be the better cold-weather team. But their defensive line is also beat up, they have a rookie middle linebacker, and a secondary that couldn’t match up with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ receivers.

Jacksonville is a very good team. There is no denying that. They showed some guts and poise last week in beating the Steelers on the road. They have a leader at quarterback in David Garrard that they did not have in Byron Leftwich the last time they visited Gillette for a playoff game two years ago.

They also have Jack Del Rio, who might be able to outcoach someone like Mike Tomlin but can’t hold a candle to Belichick. Granted, his leather jacket has it all over Belichick’s hoodie, but we’re not riding our choppers across the country here.

This is where the real work begins. Sure, every regular-season opponent treated their game against the Patriots like it was the Super Bowl. Those teams were trying to beat the Patriots just to be the team that beat the Patriots. From here on, everybody is playing for their own version of a perfect season – a real Super Bowl championship.

No one knows more about what it takes to be the team holding the Lombardi Trophy in February. No one has more of the pieces you need to be that team. No one has more incentive to be that team. And no one else has Bill Belichick and Tom Brady guiding them there.

This doesn’t make the Patriots a shoe-in, but if you’re a Patriots fans, you should be able to sleep pretty well for the next couple of nights.