Patriots march toward destiny

By Christine Daniels

Oct. 22, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

The chill that went down the spines of the members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins on Sunday was cold enough to keep their annual stash of celebratory champagne at a comfortable consumption level. And therein lies their problem.

After watching the New England Patriots ransack their sad-sack ’07 0-7 successors at Dolphin Stadium, 49-28, the ’72 Dolphins must have an unsettling feeling about that champagne, which is cracked open every year whenever the last undefeated NFL team loses its first game. The way Tom Brady is playing, and the way Bill Belichick coaches, there is an excellent chance the ’72 Dolphins will be tasting nothing more bubbly this season than some bitter sips of sour grape juice.

In terms of temperament and cold-hearted tenacity, the ’07 Patriots (7-0) are nothing like the last team to give the ’72 Dolphins a three-month-long worry, the ’05 Indianapolis Colts. Those Colts were coached by nice-guy Tony Dungy, who was then cursed by the double burden of desperately wanting to win one Super Bowl in his lifetime and over-thinking everything he thought that might entail.

At 13-0 in mid-December, Dungy had the division championship and home-field advantage iced, so he obsessed about January and early February. Dungy rested his starters in the Colts’ 14th regular-season game -- and lost it, not too surprisingly, to the San Diego Chargers.

The Colts also lost their next game, to the Seattle Seahawks. Although they managed to beat the Arizona Cardinals in their regular-season finale, the Colts had let too much doubt and rust accumulate before they opened -- and closed -- their postseason run against the Pittsburgh Steelers. That’s the eventual Super Bowl champion Steelers.

The ’07 Patriots are not the ’05 Colts. Not anything close. They have three Super Bowl triumphs in their portfolio, so they know the course. They are coached by a man who believes “Winning is the only thing” is a sentiment for softies, who had a spy-cam trained on the sideline of the hapless New York Jets, who reigns as the leading lead foot on the NFL’s hardest-driving coaches’ circuit.

In case the ’72 Dolphins, or anybody else, had any doubt: With his team holding a 42-14 lead over Miami, Belichick removed Brady, who had already thrown for five touchdowns, and replaced him with backup quarterback Matt Cassel. Three plays later, Cassel had a pass intercepted by Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor, who took it in for a touchdown that cut New England’s lead to 21 points.

Belichick’s benevolence reached its limit. Brady was sent back into the game, and four plays later, Brady connected with Wes Welker for a 16-yard score, boosting the Patriots’ advantage back to a much more palatable 28 points.

Questioned about it afterward, Belichick tried to explain to reporters that “One more turnover and it’s a 14-point game in the middle of the fourth quarter.”

Well, it might have been, assuming Cassel could continue to free up Taylor the same way Brady freed up Welker and Moss on Sunday. Or assuming Miami quarterback Cleo Lemon could actually generate three scoring drives in less than 10 minutes.

That’s assuming an awful lot, but that’s Belichick.

That also lends some insight into how Belichick might play out the schedule should his team reach 13-0. Especially if Brady, who has 27 passes for touchdowns in seven games, has a chance in December to overhaul Peyton Manning’s single-season record of 49. Remember, Manning eliminated Belichick from last season’s Super Bowl tournament. You know Belichick will never forget.

And now that Tennessee’s Rob Bironas has set a new standard for field goals in a game -- eight -- you know that Belichick will be scanning the schedule for the right time and place to find New England’s Stephen Gostkowski the chance to kick nine.

Bironas had eight field goals against Houston on Sunday -- and his Titans needed every one of them to pull out a 38-36 victory over the Texans.

(A note about this one: Tennessee took a 32-7 lead into the fourth quarter, then saw Houston take the lead behind a record-tying four fourth-quarter passes for touchdowns by backup quarterback Sage Rosenfels. Bironas had to be summoned to rescue the Titans with a 29-yard field goal as time expired. This never would have happened if Belichick coached the Titans.)

The Patriots’ quest for perfection this season has been matched by the Colts, who try to move to 7-0 tonight against Jacksonville. That quest also has been counterbalanced by the Dolphins and the St. Louis Rams, both relentless in their pursuit of the league’s first 0-16 season.

The Rams kept pace with the Dolphins in an impressive all-purpose 33-6 defeat at Seattle. Now dressing the part, with white shirts and white pants as spotless as their victory total, the Rams welcomed quarterback Marc Bulger back to the lineup by allowing him to be sacked seven times (one for every St. Louis loss!). Bulger returned the favor by throwing three passes for interceptions.

At 0-7, the Rams are off to the worst start in the franchise’s 70-year Cleveland-to-Los Angeles-to-Anaheim-to-St. Louis history. And to think T.J. Rubley never started a season 0-7.

Seattle, which looked positively awful in consecutive losses to Pittsburgh and New Orleans, is now 4-3 and holds a commanding and quite insurmountable one-game lead in the NFC West over Arizona.

The Cardinals lost at Washington, 21-19, after Coach Ken Whisenhunt got a little too enamored with his quarterback-shuttle brainstorm and sent in Anquan Boldin to pass for the potential tying two-point conversion in the final seconds.

Boldin ordinarily plays wide receiver. On this play, he passed like a wide receiver, taking the shotgun snap, rolling right and tossing the ball into the end zone into the waiting arms of Washington safety LaRon Landry.

If you followed the NFL this season by only watching ESPN, you would might assume the NFC has been renamed “The Dallas Cowboys and Fifteen Tumbleweeds.” If you kept track of things only by watching Fox, you’d probably think the NFC is now known as “The New York Giants’ 2007 Highlight Video.”

If so, you might be surprised that Washington (4-2) is still very much a factor in the NFC East. The Cowboys improved to 6-1 with a 24-14 triumph over the Minnesota Vikings, which means the Cowboys are 1-1 against opponents with winning records. That one victory came in Week 1 against the Giants, who were 0-2 after Week 2 but are now 5-2 after defeating San Francisco, 33-15.

As reward for sacking Trent Dilfer six times, the Giants have won an all-expenses-paid trip to London next weekend. As a bonus for picking off two Dilfer passes, the Giants will also have a free victory -- a scheduled game against the Dolphins! -- thrown into the package.

Actually, the Giants versus the Dolphins at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 28 has been on the schedule for some time. At this point, there is nothing British customs officials can do about it. The Dolphins are coming, but whoever said London was calling?

christine.daniels@latimes.com

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Kicking up a fuss

Tennessee Titans kicker Rob Bironas broke two NFL records Sunday:

MOST POINTS IN A GAME BY A KICKER

*--* 26: Rob Bironas, Tennessee at Houston, Oct. 21, 2007 *--*

23: Billy Cundiff, Dallas vs. N.Y. Giants, Sept. 15, 2003 (OT)

22: Jim Bakken, St. Louis vs. Pittsburgh, Sept. 24, 1967

21: Jeff Wilkins, St. Louis vs. San Diego, Oct. 1, 2000

21: Chris Boniol, Dallas vs. Green Bay, Nov. 18, 1996

21: Jeff Wilkins, San Francisco vs. Atlanta, Sept. 29, 1996

21: Rich Karlis, Minnesota vs. L.A. Rams, Nov. 5, 1989 (OT)