Every New England Patriots fan, whether he or she owned an officially licensed Mosi Tatupu jersey in 1985 or was playing musical chairs on the bandwagon after the turn of the century, is guilty of an absurd, painful amount of hubris.

Sunday’s first clue to my own guilt was hearing that James White joined Kyle Van Noy on the list of Pats who’ve missed a September game due to maternity leave and doing the math. Hey, when you clinch the division two weeks before Christmas every year, you’re relaxed and free to focus on making babies.

Kalle Oakes, Sports Columnist

So I get it, but please, still, allow me to issue one request. Can we stop with all this 19-0 talk already?

Because I’ve seen that movie before. I know how it ends, and it’s all parts foolish, ignorant of NFL history and disrespectful to how tough the league is, even in a watered down, sanitized era.

And I know it’s largely being advanced by beat writers and bloggers desperate for clicks and people who are flagrantly playing a game of reverse psychology or superstition and praying it works. All the more reason not to participate, yes?

The road to a seventh Lombardi Trophy won’t be as smooth, the conclusion as foregone, as three over-matched AFC opponents made it look.

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Nearly one-third of the league was undefeated after Week 2. That doesn’t bode well for anyone with hazy dreams of running the table. It tells me the competition on one end of the spectrum is too good to make assumptions, and at the other extreme, too weak to make the body of work meaningful at this stage.

Most of the excessive optimism stands upon the incomparable Tom Brady as its foundation, and rightfully so. The dude looks like he’s playing pitch-and-catch against novice-level Madden ’20 defenses at 42 years of age.

Forty-two. We forget that, which is easy to do when the guy appears fitter and younger than he did half a lifetime ago, but it doesn’t change the laws of nature.

Brady already is in uncharted territory for all non-kickers. Anyone else who stuck around this long under center was a back-up or a stopgap. And don’t “George Blanda” me, because he didn’t throw with any regularity for the final 10 seasons of his career.

We’ve already seen the closest things Brady has to contemporaries, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger, sidelined with season-altering and season-ending injuries, respectively. Even in a historical epoch when the sport’s gatekeepers have all but sewn red, do-not-touch practice jerseys to these guys, joints and exposed appendages are begging to be damaged at this stage of the game. All the avocado smoothies and kale chips under the sun won’t restore normalcy when that happens.

The offensive line is an anonymous MASH unit. While that’s been the custom forever and a day, it’s less endearing when your quarterback is a guy who won the Citrus Bowl during the last days of grunge. As we saw in 2008, the Patriots are only as good as their legendary leader on the field, period.

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His receiving corps is week-to-week, and that was the case long before the short-lived gamble on Antonio Brown. That leaves New England’s most physically gifted flanker as Josh Gordon, who’s one moment of weakness away from being banished from the game. Whatever the Vegas line on his eligibility, based on all Gordon’s career evidence to this point, I’m taking the under.

Subtract those two along with Rob Gronkowski — sorry, y’all, but with the self-reported 20 concussions and the weight loss rivaling a Major League Baseball slugger in 2003 spring training, he isn’t coming back — and the Patriots are back to nickel-and-dime, to quick slants, swing passes and bubble screens.

Hey, no worries. They’ve won titles in like manner, but the thought of having the horses to go undefeated should be dismissed as laughable.

Stephen Gostkowski’s case of the yips doesn’t matter much while the Pats are 23-point favorites at home. It will come back to bite them if he doesn’t get it sorted out. The next Patriots team to win a title without a kicker who was just about dead, solid perfect in December, January and February will be the first.

OK, you’re right, I’ve ignored the best news to this point. New England flaunts a no-name defense that’s fit, so far, to be in the same conversation with the only other modern-era team to go undefeated. They’ve been disarmingly, almost frighteningly good.

“To this point” and “so far” being the operative words. Please note that beginning Nov. 3, the Patriots will face Lamar Jackson, Carson Wentz, Dak Prescott, Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes in consecutive weeks.

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I’ll concede the Pats could be an untested 8-0 going into that stretch. If you’re comfortable with that, wonderful. I salute your optimism and loyalty.

My favorite Patriot teams, and the ones that ultimately reached the pinnacle, were 2-2 in September or had a crisis of confidence in October. They needed dumb luck to beat bad teams. They “hated” their coach. Their dynasty was presumed dead.

If it seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is. The Patriots absolutely should be considered an odds-on favorite to win it all. They have this journey down to a science, and they enter it with the best coach, the best quarterback, an undersold home-field advantage and a roster that’s better top-to-bottom than the rest of the league by a mile.

None of that is realistically good enough to get through an entire NFL schedule unscathed. So pump the brakes, prepare for the nervous tension and enjoy the traditional manner in which the champs work their way through it.

Kalle Oakes spent 27 years in the Sun Journal sports department. He is now sports editor of the Georgetown (Kentucky) News-Graphic. Keep in touch with him by email at kaloakes1972@yahoo.com or on Twitter @oaksie72.


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