Sometimes the awards have to be handed out before the competition is done, because the winners may not be around when it’s over. Such is the case with the best football team in the NFL, the New England Patriots.

They could lose as early as Sunday and as late as Feb. 1 in Houston. In sports, the best team during a season doesn’t win; the better team on any particular day does. That’s the nature of the game.

But even if Bill Belichick’s crew doesn’t make it out of the AFC Championship round, it shouldn’t diminish what they have done and what they represent. They have survived adversity, overcome injury, and run up a 14-2 regular season record. And they represent the way that a franchise and a team should be run.

Remember just before the season began when Belichick cut the leader of his defense, cornerback Lawyer Milloy, because Milloy wouldn’t accept the contract that the team offered him? At the time, Belichick was reviled as cheap, insensitive, shortsighted, and a lot of other things.

Events of the first week of the season seemed to justify the criticism. The Patriots lost 31-0 to the Bills. After four games, they were 2-2, wracked with injuries and all but counted out of the race for the playoffs.

It’s familiar stuff by now, and if the Patriots get to the Super Bowl and win it, it will be the stuff of legend.

But it’s more than a great story about a coach and the team that rallied behind his leadership. It’s a lesson about the very nature of a team and the essence of winning.

Belichick, it turns out, knew exactly what he was doing. The money Milloy wanted wasn’t in the budget. It’s not that it couldn’t be found. The Pats could have figured out to keep him, but Belichick realized that if they did, they’d suffer somewhere else, either right now or down the line.

The NFL’s rigid salary cap inflicts cruel and difficult choices on teams.

It invites foolhardy moves and inflicts almost insufferable temptation on the keepers of the payroll. We live in a society obsessed with stardom. When we have one, we feel we have to keep him. When we don’t have one, we have to get him.

But peppering a team with stars is a sure road to ruin. Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder thought he’d buy big talent and ended up with one of the worst teams in the league. Other teams, such as Kansas City and St. Louis, are so enamored of their offensive stars they don’t have enough money to play defense.

Belichick refused to surrender to the cult of the star. He knew that 53 men were more important than one. He also knew he had two of the best defensive backs in the league even without Milloy, and his defense was sound.

What is most impressive about the Patriots is that they are the most balanced team in the game. Their offense has a middle-of-the-pack running back, a good young quarterback, and a lot of people who just do their jobs. The defense is the best in the business. And the special teams are rock solid.

Whether they win or get to the Super Bowl, that doesn’t change. In a league in which an incipient dynasty is declared every time a team wins four straight games, the Patriots are consistent. They didn’t make the playoffs last year, a year after they won the Super Bowl, but they also didn’t collapse. And now they’re back contending for another Super Bowl. Next year, they’ll be a pre-season favorite to get back again.

The lesson is confirmed by a look at the other teams still in the tournament. Three of the four are balanced teams. The Panthers have no real super stars, but they play very tough defense, have an offense that runs the ball well and passes effectively and they don’t get beat on special teams.

The Eagles have a bend-but-don’t-break defense, one very, very special player on offense in quarterback Donovan McNabb, and special teams that can win you a game.

In getting to the conference finals, the Panthers beat the Rams, allegedly the greatest show on turf. The Eagles dispatched the Packers, another team with too much offense and not enough defense.

Of the remaining teams, only the Colts are lopsided, with the scales tilted heavily toward offense. They got to the AFC Championship Game not by stopping the Chiefs, but by outscoring them.

Indianapolis could get to the Super Bowl and even win it. The odds are against that happening, but the odds don’t have to put on pads and block and tackle.

But even if the Colts do win, it won’t be proof that the surest way to hoist the NFL’s big silver football is to assemble great offensive talent.

In the first place, there’s only one Marvin Harrison and one Peyton Manning.

They are once-in-a-generation players, and to have two such exceeding talents on the same team is something that happens very, very rarely.

In the second place, even if the Colts win, they can’t possibly remain at the top for long, because they won’t be able to afford to pay Harrison, Edgerrin James, Manning, the offensive line to protect them, and still have anything but chump change left over to spackle together a defense.

You don’t turn down talent like Manning and Harrison, but you also don’t find it often. What everyone can find are players who fill rolls, players who won’t pull down superstar money but, working together with a great coach, can put up wins and trophies.

The Patriots are the template for the modern NFL. They are the best true team in the league. They deserve credit for that now before the championship, before the Super Bowl, because losing one game might change how we perceive them, but it won’t change what they are.

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