Playoff-Bound Patriots?

I'm going to say it. You can't stop me. Don't try. Don't even bother.

The Patriots are going to the playoffs. The Patriots are going to the AFC Championship Game. The Patriots are going to the Superbowl. The Patriots are going to Disney World.

I know, I know. You think I have lost it. You think I have been eating too much Harvard Dinning Services food. Well, let me tell you that I am at least as sane as my schizophrenic fellow editor Downtown Eric Brown Knows is any day of the week. And, don't worry, I'm not a Chiefs fan either.

For years, I endured the Patriots and their perennial losing record. I endured the Patsies, the front office bumbling, the Lisa Olsen affair and the root canal-like pain of the 1986 Superbowl. I endured the incompetent owner shuffle, Hugh Millen, Zeke Mowatt, the Megaplex and the reinstitution of cheerleaders. I wasn't happy, but I endured.

Last year, I stopped enduring. I started enjoying. The Patriots have become an enjoyable football team. Somewhere between Millen and Mowatt, Olsen and Orthwein, someone convinced the Patriots how to win.

Not one someone, two some ones. Bill Parcells and Drew Bledsoe.

Parcells is a football demigod. He is the one of the last of those coaching dinosaur: the disciplinarian. He doesn't coddle the players (like a recently fired Boston coach did) and he doesn't protect them from the media cutthroats. He doesn't heap praise on them or soothe their egos. He screams. And, he does it with artery-popping intensity.

His players respect this type of behavior. While they don't exactly fear him, they don't want to get chewed out by him either. Amazingly, the players respect this man with his shorts pulled over his belly button and a monstrous, beer belly gut.

Drew Bledsoe has been in the league less than two years and he is already a premier player. After the fifth week of the season, he still the number one-rated signal caller in the NFL. For the season, he is 138-of-229 (.603) for 1,751 yards, 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions. After 18 games, he is already eighth on the Patriots' all-time list of yards gained. He is 22 years old.

On Sunday, Bledsoe was not as good as he has been in the last couple of weeks. But, he got the W and that's all that matters.

After bringing his team from a 10-0 halftime deficit to a 14-10 fourth quarter advantage, Bledsoe got a kick in the teeth yesterday and still bounded back to snatch (gum?) victory from the jaws of defeat. I saw the Patriot defense, which, I should mention, is not the strongest in the league, crumple with less than five minutes left. That defense allowed Brett Favre to march 73 yards downfield for a touchdown, a 14-10 lead and a paltry 1:14 on the clock.

At this point, someone must have awakened Mr. Elvis Patriot. He put the shake, rattle and roll right into Frank Winters's long snap causing Chris Jacke to blow his streak of 126 PATs.

That was all Bledsoe needed. Whoever said give him an inch and he'll take a mile must have known our friend from Walla Walla, Washington.

Unlike the other Patriot quarterbacks of recent memory who would melt in the face of such adversity, Drew Bledsoe led his team in a business-like manner to the 27-yard line. Matt Bahr, his confidence shaken after two misses earlier in the day, pushed away the mental chains and found a way to put the ball between the uprights.

Even if I did get carried away with those grandiose predictions a little earlier in this column, one thing is for certain: Drew Bledsoe is the real deal. (Hey, Jerry Glanville said it. It must be true.) I am going to go out on a limb and say that the Patriots sophomore quarterback will be one of the greatest of all time. He will rank up there with the Johnny Unitas and Joe Montanas for the simple reason that he knows how to win.

So folks, sit back and relax. I know I am going to enjoy looking at Bledsoe's Superbowl rings in a couple of years.