A week ago, in the afterglow of the Patriots’ 44-7 throttling of the New York Jets at the Meadowlands, we lauded the victors thusly:

"They are Supermen. Spider-Men. X-men. International Men of Mystery. Men in (eye) Black. Made Men. Maine Men. Men at Work."

Well, turns out they’re not exactly supermen, are they? And seeing as how a lot of the trick plays inserted into the offensive game plan failed to produce on Sunday, perhaps they aren’t even the men of mystery anymore. Indeed, the veneer of invincibility was tarnished somewhat in game three of the young NFL season, but New England is nonetheless 3-0, thanks to a valiant offensive effort by Tom Brady, Troy Brown, and the rest of the freewheeling juggernaut that tattooed the visiting Kansas City Chiefs with a 41-38 overtime victory at the Razor’s Edge (Gillette Stadium) on Sunday.

For the Patriots, this game had nearly all the ingredients necessary for the recipe for disaster:

• Overconfidence. Well, why wouldn’t they be overconfident? In the first two games of the season, New England had trounced the reputed cream of the crop of the AFC, and both Pittsburgh and the Jets were left shaking their collective heads at the Pats’ firepower. Every sportswriter and sportscaster in the country had taken notice of the champs’ impressive start, and even Las Vegas bookmakers had come to their senses and finally made New England the favorite to defend its title. Yep, back-to-back victories over the conference iron can make you feel pretty good about yourself, and then you get to play your first regular-season day game at home against ...

• A perceived weak opponent. Into the line of fire waltzes Kansas City, a team that for all intents and purposes should have been 0-2, including a decisive loss to the dreadful Jaguars in KC. We knew about the Chiefs’ dynamite running back, Priest Homes, and their top-notch tight end, Tony Gonzalez, but what other significant weapons did KC bring to town? Trent Green? Yeah. Well, turns out that head coach Dick Vermeil and his staff did bring a solid club into Foxborough, and while it never really felt like the Chiefs could ultimately prevail (even when they went up, 10-0), they hung around all afternoon and mounted a decisive comeback late in the game to send the game into OT.

• Swagger. Again, it’s the Patriots’ right to feel that they can play with anybody, and when you’re a Super Bowl champ, you can strut and flex all you want. Who’s going to challenge you? Well, the swagger led to some foolish penalties in the first half, with unnecessary-roughness calls and an offensive-pass-interference flag proving costly. In all, the Pats collected 12 infractions totaling 100 yards in penalties, and a third of those violations occurred on special teams, a unit which had a particularly tough day. In addition, that swagger combined with the overconfidence resulted in an assortment of cheap shots, missed tackles, and the belief — or arrogance? — that the razzle-dazzle plays of the past would no doubt succeed at any juncture. The timing of attempting a fake point-after-touchdown kick was ludicrous, as the Pats had just gotten on the board after falling behind by 10 in the second quarter, and to have the PAT holder — punter Ken Walter — try to barrel through the line into the end zone for a two-point conversion was perplexing, to say the least. Also dangerous was a play where the tailback threw the ball back to Brady in the pocket, who missed it; and though Brady recovered the loose football, the team suffered a significant loss of yardage in the process. We had seen offensive coordinator Charlie Weis’s trickery come up aces so many times previously that we, and perhaps the coaching staff, had come to the conclusion that the ploys were foolproof. When they didn’t work out as planned, particularly against an opponent viewed as ripe for the pickin’, it was dumbfounding.

• Significant injuries. Well, perhaps the Patriots haven’t been cursed with that many injuries at this stage of the 2002 season, but the absence of defensive sparkplugs Tedy Bruschi and Roman Phifer proved to be significant, as the Chiefs were able to generate 221 yards on the ground, with Holmes collecting 180 of those rushing yards by himself. The New England cover guys also had their hands full, but they weren’t about to let a journeyman like Green burn them too many times. Nonetheless, the Patriots defense, which had not given up more than 17 points since November 18, 2001 (all the while tormenting opponents throughout the 12-game winning streak that began the following week), looked strangely human on Sunday. Giving up 38 points to a team like Kansas City could not have been predicted, and in most cases would have guaranteed a loss.

Fortunately, though, Brady and the offense made it look easy nearly all afternoon. The way the boy wonder picked apart the KC pass defense was laughable at times, and after a first quarter where he went four-for-nine with just 22 yards in completions (thanks to some sloppy receiving efforts) and the team was actually booed on both sides of the ball for its indifferent play, the offense kicked into gear midway through the second quarter. And no one was more responsible for the offense finally clicking than Brown, who caught a team-record 16 passes after dropping a gimme in the first drive of the game. Quite frankly, Troy Brown was unstoppable.

I have stood face to face with Brown, and he is not a big guy. Five-foot-10, maybe, but nothing imposing like a Keyshawn Johnson or Randy Moss, both of whom are six-foot-four. Yet Brown’s regular-guy stature did not take away from his ability to make the big plays all day long, and it was amazing to see that the Chiefs’ defensive scheme could do nothing to slow him down, even when it became obvious that he was the prime target on play after play after play. His receiving total of 176 yards represented over 40 percent of Brady’s passing totals (410 yards on 39 of 54 completions, four TDs, one INT) — although, per usual, eight other receivers caught at least one ball during the course of the afternoon. Brady did not seem to be as sharp with his play-action play fakes as he had been in the first couple of games, but he was remarkably accurate with his passes and able to drive the team down the field seemingly at will when a score was needed.

Make no mistake: a better quarterback could very well have led the Chiefs to a victory on this day, as Green threw for only 149 yards and had two passes intercepted. Throw in a costly Holmes fumble early in the second half, and you realize how close this game really was. The fact is, the Patriots in many ways looked like the mere mortals that they are, and as nine-point favorites played just well enough to win. Patriots fans haven’t been accustomed to seeing the team commit foolish penalties, drop passes, miss tackles, and allow the opponent to march down the field unimpeded; Patriots Nation is used to seeing the opponents’ running back shut down, and that is why seeing Holmes run wild for 180 yards and two touchdowns makes one shudder to think what Ricky Williams and the Dolphins will inflict on our beloved men in (eye) black two weeks hence.

All of a sudden, without warning, it seemed like Vermeil, the only coach to lead the Rams to a title, had brought kryptonite to the stadium, and our band of humble Clark Kents was reduced to the earthly beings that they most likely are. In broad daylight, the Chiefs proved that the Patriots could make mistakes; they could be scored upon; and they could be beaten.

When will that ultimately happen? Not this weekend; this Sunday’s opponent, the San Diego Chargers, are 3-0 like New England, but their schedule thus far has been a relative cakewalk: impressive victories in Cincinnati and Arizona bookending a home win against the expansion Texans. The Lightning Bolts have yet to see any team of the caliber of the Patriots, and second-year QB Drew Brees will be overmatched by the schemes of Bill Belichick and defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel. San Diego might even be better off starting favorite son Doug Flutie, who is at least somewhat familiar with the swarming Patriots pass rush and is much fleeter of foot. Brees, the former Purdue quarterback who was given the starting job in training camp over the ageless Flutie, has no idea what he’ll be up against, particularly after the cupcakes he’s faced in the first three weeks. Other than Carolina, there is no team whose 3-0 record is more deceptive than the Bolts’, and the Pats should prevail despite the problems that the Chargers defense presents.

New England at Miami on October 6, well, that tilt will be a dandy. The Fins are also off to a 3-0 start, and though their competition to this point has been unimpressive (home wins over Detroit and the Jets, a road victory in Indy), they will pose a formidable challenge to the hometown lads. A good indicator of that future Pats-Fish match-up will come on Sunday, when Miami goes to KC to face the disheartened Chiefs. If the Dolphins struggle to win, as the Patriots did on Sunday, then we can project the two AFC East foes as comparable, but should the Fins shut down Holmes and the KC running game, then New England will face its toughest challenge of the season in the Miami heat that day, with tough games against Green Bay and Denver immediately on deck.

In the meantime, the Super Bowl champs are unbeaten this year, Tom Brady is 17-3 as a starter, Troy Brown is a kryptonite-resistant superman, and things should return to normal in sunny San Diego this week.

You’ll be getting my report from Chicago this coming weekend, as I visit Comiskey Park Thursday and Wrigley Field over the weekend. Though at this point I have no specific plans to climb over the railing and attack a first-base coach or even a batboy, I’ll leave my options open, since it will be my first visit to the long-suffering baseball town that has waited 85 years for a White Sox championship and 94 years for a Cubs title (and you thought that Boston had it bad).

When we return, the Red Sox will mercifully be done, the Patriots will be 4-0, and the Bruins will be 10 days away from opening their 2002-’03 campaign.

Let’s talk then.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com.