The New England Patriots will play in their third Super Bowl in four years in a little over a week. And there’s a pretty good chance they’ll get their third Super Bowl victory, a rarity in the National Football League these days.

The Patriots are looking to become the first team since the Dallas Cowboys of the early 90’s to win three Super Bowls with the same core group of players. Even more amazing is the fact that the Patriots have been able to win consistently despite injuries to several key players. For example, they have a wide receiver playing defensive back… and he was tied for the team lead with three interceptions this year. Several players come in on both offense and defense, and sometimes even on special teams. The key to the Patriots success has been the selfless sacrifices that everyone has been willing to make to improve the team, realizing that the team is truly only as strong as its weakest link.

The way I see it, there were two major events that turned the Patriots franchise around. One was the injury to all-Pro quarterback Drew Bledsoe that allowed Tom Brady to step in and lead the team like Troy Aikman or Joe Montana would have done. The other was the hiring of coach Bill Belichick ’75. With Belichick at the helm, the Patriots developed into a true team, full of players who are always quick to give credit to anyone but themselves- a team introduced as one solid unit in before their games- and they have done it all with more replacement players than superstars.

In their first two championship seasons, the Patriots didn’t have any star receivers or running backs, but rather several very solid team players. The off-season acquisition of running back Corey Dillon (which I first heard announced by Belichick on the Wesleyan campus) gave the Patriots one of the top backs in the league; although he had a stellar season statistically, he fits right into the Patriots system, doing whatever is needed to win and giving credit to the offensive line and his other teammates.

Although Brady will go to the Pro Bowl this year, the Patriots are still without a feature wide receiver like Terrell Owens of the NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles, but they really don’t need one. The Patriots are looking to prove that in the biggest sports event of the year in Jacksonville on February 6th. The last two Super Bowls they played in were the two most exciting Super Bowls of all time- even if you ignore Janet Jackson’s right breast. Each game ended with a field goal from clutch kicker Adam Vinatieri in the final seconds. This year’s Super Bowl promises to be just as exciting, as the Patriots look to contain Donovan McNabb, Terrell Owens, and the Philadelphia Eagles- a task that Belichick and his team should be able to handle after containing (manhandling) Peyton Manning and making Ben Roethlisberger look like a rookie. There’s a chance this game will be closer than the last two- as the Eagles are similar to the Patriots in that the entire team does not rely on just one player- but there’s not a very good chance that the Patriots will lose.