E-Mail This Article to a Friend Remember us? Catching up with New England’s forgotten team: The world-champion Patriots BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

It’s still spring around here, and the first NFL exhibition game isn’t for another 10 weeks or so, but this summer is shaping up to be another odd one for the New England Patriots. It’s not that they’re not making news off the field; it’s just that even though they are the crowned princes of the National Football League, they are not particularly on anyone’s radar screen right now — especially with their regional counterparts, the Red Sox, again enmeshed in a pennant race.

It’s certainly not the Pats’ fault that they’re getting page-two treatment these days. The team’s miraculous finish — a 15-game winning streak en route to a Super Bowl victory over Carolina on February 1 — still brings a smile to the gridiron gauchos whenever they’re reminded of it, but the season-long drama unreeling for the Red Sox continues to eclipse the Pats on the local sports landscape.

So let’s take a break from the Bruins’ annual post-season disappointment and the unsettled NHL picture. Let’s enjoy a respite from the postmortems of the Boston Celtics and their aimless off-season meanderings. Let’s even try to bypass the trials and tribulations of the local nine for a moment and revisit the only professional franchise in the six-state region to bring home a championship in the last 17-plus years.

What indeed is going on with the New England Patriots?

The off-season has seen plenty more going-away parties than welcome wagons. The Pats have chosen to say, "Thanks for the memories" to a few key members of last year’s squad, while allowing a few others to find greener pastures. Running back Antowain Smith, whose late-in-the-day contributions this past season (as well as two years ago) catapulted the team into championship territory, was deemed too expensive given his age (32) and cost. And while no NFL team has been spared free-agent defections, New England — particularly among its interior linemen — has been significantly affected. Given the restrictions of the salary cap, it’s not surprising that the team could not afford to keep everyone it wanted — especially when nearly one-eighth of the entire cap is going to cornerback Ty "The Hungry Man" Law this season. Still, losing such critical 2003 performers as Damien Woody, Ted Washington, and Bobby Hamilton leaves big voids in the trenches, although last year’s injury-ravaged squad proved that it had the depth to plug those considerable holes. Unheralded back-ups such as Dan Klecko, Russ Hochstein, and Ty Warren were summoned into action early in their careers with the Patriots, and all made noteworthy impacts as the season progressed.

Even more promising is the fact that the team apparently drafted well, with the Patriots having received one of only two A grades given by Sports Illustrated football writer Paul Zimmerman (the Lions got the other). The drafting of DT Vince Wilfork cancels out the loss of the gargantuan Washington, and a pre-draft trade that brought Bengals RB Corey Dillon to Foxborough granted an instantaneous and dramatic upgrade from Smith, the Pats’ rushing leader the last three seasons. And don’t forget: last year’s Super Bowl champs played practically the entire season without free-agent linebacker Rosevelt Colvin and wideout David Patten; both guys should return this season to a team that managed quite well in their absence.

Patriot Nation should derive the most solace from the fact that the 2003 team’s nucleus is still in place, particularly on the offensive side, and even better things are expected from such breakout performers as David Givens, Christian Fauria, and Deion Branch. Then you’ve got the old reliables — guys like Tom Brady, Troy Brown (who at age 32 reportedly re-upped over the weekend for another season), Law, Willie McGinest, Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, Joe Andruzzi, and Adam Vinatieri — who settled into Bill Belichick’s system and performed like a well-oiled machine during the streak.

You’ve also got the coaching staff, which remarkably lost but one member of the brain trust (linebackers coach Rob Ryan) to other teams. That state of affairs is unheard-of at the college level (where position coaches on winning teams routinely get offers from other schools), but because of NFL restrictions on interviewing staff members of teams still in the playoff hunt, offensive coordinator Charlie Weis and defensive whiz Romeo Crennel were stuck coaching their own team until the final gun in Houston — and by then, all the league’s coaching vacancies had been filled. Bad for Weis’s and Crennel’s head-coaching aspirations; good for the team’s established chain of command.

So you’ve got a post-championship football team that has arguably improved itself in some ways. Not a bad situation to find yourself in, although one could argue that the 2002 Patriots — a team that didn’t even qualify for the playoffs after winning Super Bowl XXXVI — also had no perceived weaknesses entering their title defense two autumns ago. If you want to pursue that angle, then you’re implying that competitors waiting in the wings may have the firepower to dethrone the 2003 Lombardi Trophy winners.

Is that the case? At this early date, it doesn’t appear so, at least in the AFC East. Miami still has QB problems despite acquiring former Eagles third-stringer A.J. Feeley, and incumbent Jay Fiedler doesn’t make anyone quake in his boots, either. Plus, many experts feel the Fins drafted poorly, and did not properly address last year’s biggest source of problems, the offensive line. The Jets? I’d call NY a team in transition right now, particularly on the defensive side. Their only significant off-season acquisition was WR Justin McCareins, and if you asked, "Who’s he?", then you’re not alone. SI’s Zimmerman gave the Jets’ draft a C (highlighted by first-round pick Jonathan Vilma, a linebacker), and that won’t do much for a team already coming off a 6-10 campaign. Finally, 6-10 Buffalo appears to have made strides this off-season, but Drew Bledsoe’s still at the helm, which, given his 2003 meltdown, is certainly not good news in Western New York. And first-round draft choice J.P. Losman, a highly regarded QB prospect out of Tulane, cannot be expected to make an immediate impact should Bledsoe continue to struggle.

The overall mediocrity of the division gives New England a head start in defense of its crown, but then you’ve got the rest of the AFC behemoths to contend with. KC? Not enough done through free agency or the draft to strengthen last year’s early-season darlings, who were exposed in their home playoff loss to the Colts. Speaking of which, how does Indy look? Because of Peyton Manning’s restructured contract, the Horseshoes couldn’t afford to keep much of their other talent (especially on D), and therefore the team’s spectacular offense will continue to be offset by the defensive liabilities. Tennessee’s success will still depend on beat-up Steve McNair, and the Ravens for the most part maintained the status quo. That leaves Denver and Oakland as perhaps the conference’s most-improved teams, and New England will not see either of those AFC West rivals until the playoffs at the earliest.

The Patriots’ upcoming regular-season schedule is intriguing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the set of circumstances surrounding the 15-game winning streak. The 1971 Dolphins lost Super Bowl VI to the Redskins, then reeled off 17 straight without a loss the following season to capture their first-ever Super Bowl championship. Win number 18 came in the 1973 season opener before the streak ended with a 12-7 loss at Oakland. The Patriots will open the 2004-’05 NFL season with a Thursday-nighter at home against the Colts (a rematch of the AFC title game from January), followed by road games at Arizona and Buffalo. Should New England win those three, it will have tied Miami’s record for consecutive wins, setting the stage for the potential record-breaker at Gillette against, yep, the Dolphins. Sounds like a tough ticket to me.

The streak could very likely end in the season’s first trio of games, but the heat will be rising to blistering levels if the Patriots manage to maintain it through the season’s first month. Then you’ll have a cataclysmic showdown for local sports fans’ attention as the Red Sox potentially begin the post-season and the Patriots look to establish history.

At any rate, the Pats’ 2004 schedule will include four prime-time affairs (including a pair on MNF) and will take them to such familiar road stops as Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Miami — squads that still harbor some resentment over past losses that prevented them from enjoying post-season glory. Other interesting match-ups include home meetings with the Seahawks, Ravens, Bengals, and 49ers. These teams have either qualified for the playoffs over the last two seasons, or, in the case of the Bengals, are up-and-comers who already have a streak-breaker on their résumé (derailing the Chiefs’ 10-game win streak in November 2003).

In the meantime, a lot of fans around here may be answering Hank Williams’s musical query this September — "Are you ready for some football?" — with a meek "Not quite," given the Red Sox’ ongoing quest for baseball’s holy grail.

Who will the local citizens focus on when the leaves begin to turn? The world champs or the aspiring ones? The Streak-makers or the Curse-breakers?

Be glad you even have the choice, and hope that those leaves will find a way to rake themselves.

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