Patriots Back to Obliterating the NFL, Proving They Can Win Without Cheating

There are two things I'm nearly certain of when it comes to the New England Patriots.

First: If they were ever deflating footballs, or otherwise engaging in putrid malfeasance, they are no longer.

Second: They may absolutely, as they did eight years ago, annihilate the rest of the league all season. No, they won't go undefeated, but it could still be ugly for the rest of the NFL. It could be Godzilla-ish with other franchises serving as small neighborhoods in Tokyo.

They put up fiddy against Jacksonville on Sunday and this is what the Patriots haters will say: It's only the Jaguars. Everyone smashes them. Or: The Patriots beat the Steelers earlier this season minus two of Pittsburgh's best players. They beat the Bills because Rex Ryan always runs his mouth but hasn't won anything substantial in years.

Charles Krupa/Associated Press

Sure, I get that. The Patriots are not perfect. They have holes.

But they have Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and hate. They have pure, pure hate.

The team is fueled by Deflategate. They are furious. They will never admit this, but they are. On the outside, they are robots. On the inside, they are nuclear fission.

You saw a window underneath their manicured exteriors with something Jonathan Kraft said Sunday in his weekly pregame appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub, the team's flagship station. When asked about the Ravens being 0-2 (now 0-3), Kraft said: "It's too bad about Baltimore, isn't it? It's really too bad about Baltimore."

It was the Ravens who complained the Patriots were using illegal formations in the playoff game against them last season (they were legal). Asked if it was karma, Kraft said, tongue-in-cheek: "Oh, that has nothing to do with it. The Ravens are sweethearts. John Harbaugh, he's a sweetheart."

Then, just hours after that, they blistered the Jaguars, 51-17. Yeah, it was only the Jaguars, but look so far at what New England has done. It beat Pittsburgh, 28-21. It traveled to Buffalo and put 40 on the Bills and then a 50 burger on Jacksonville.

This is the eighth time the Patriots have scored 50 or more in the Brady and Belichick era. The Elias Sports Bureau says this is the 31st time Brady has scored at least 40. And Brady became just the fourth quarterback in history to have 400 career touchdowns.

But this season for New England is about more than statistics. This is about a form of aggression we've rarely seen in the NFL. In fact, the last time we saw it was, well, the Patriots in 2007, when they went 16-0 in the regular season.

That remarkable season came after Spygate. Twelve times in that regular season they scored at least 30 points, including four times over 40 and twice over 50.

This season has the same physical and emotive look. That Patriots team wanted to prove to the league it won without cheating. This team wants to prove to the league it can win without Brady deflating footballs.

And there's no way the team is cheating now. No freaking way. Not with the world watching and Brady's case, as we speak, still winding its way through appeals court. The Patriots wouldn't run afoul of the rules now.

So what you've seen so far, and what you will likely continue to see, is sheer dominance. They won't go 16-0 again, but barring some sort of crazy injury, like to Brady or Rob Gronkowski, there really isn't a team in the AFC that can stay with them. Not a single one.

It's possible when the Patriots play the Colts later this season, they hang 50 on the main Deflategate accusers. They'll try for 60.

Billy Hurst/Associated Press

The Steelers were the one team that could have won a title game in Foxborough. They have enough of a running game and explosion on offense to keep up with Brady, despite the fact Brady would torch that defense. The Steelers also wouldn't be intimidated playing in New England.

But if Ben Roethlisberger's injury is long-term, that dream is dead. Mike Vick? This isn't 2006.

Whom do you trust in the AFC to beat Brady? Please don't say Andy Dalton. He evaporates in the postseason. Denver? It's always possible when a team has Peyton Manning, but if the game is at New England, he'd lose. The Jets? The Dolphins? The Raiders? The Patriots just obliterated the Colts last season and Andrew Luck at times this year has looked like JaMarcus Russell.

The Patriots have scored 119 points. That's 19 points more than the second-highest scoring team in the AFC, Buffalo.

After the first three games of their 16-0 season, they had 114 points. That team set the record for most points in a season with 589. The Broncos would break that record in 2013.

Again, though, beyond the numbers is the attitude. Brady stayed in the Jaguars blowout late into the game. Brady has stayed in late for blowouts before, and it's not the classiest thing to do—not to mention the risk of getting Brady hurt in meaningless mop-up time—but there's something else at work, I feel.

The team has its edge back. Its nastiness back. It acts like what the rest of the league says about it doesn't matter, but it does. The fact so many teams and fans think it cheats is one of the Patriot propellants. 

"It was a good day," Brady said at the team's post-game press conference. "...A good team win."

That's what he says.

What the Patriots are doing is more than just getting good team wins. They are back to being the nasty, cutthroat team out to prove to the NFL they aren't good because they cheat. They are good because they are good.

The Patriots are back to obliterating the NFL.

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.