They beat down the Indianapolis Colts and beat up the Pittsburgh Steelers. If the New England Patriots simply beat the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX, they will become one of the greatest teams in National Football League history.

Whether they could have beaten the Steelers of the 1970s doesn't matter a hill of beans if they win the Super Bowl. That's because they beat up the Steelers of 2004 on Sunday, crushing them 41-27 to win the AFC championship for the second consecutive year, and third time in the past four seasons. This earned the Pats a chance to defend the Super Bowl title they won a year ago.

Whether they could have beaten the San Francisco 49ers of the Joe Montana Era is unimportant in judging them, as long as they can beat the Eagles of the Donovan McNabb Era. If they do that, they will have done what only the Steelers, 49ers and Cowboys did. They will have won the Super Bowl three times with essentially the same team — a feat that assures you a place in history.

It will guarantee 27-year-old Tom Brady of one day being in the Hall of Fame. The same will be true of coach Bill Belichick, who tied the playoff record of the man the Super Bowl trophy is named after, Vince Lombardi, by pushing his postseason record to 9-1. Because he also has the same number of Super Bowl victories, a victory Feb. 6 over the underdog Eagles would put him ahead of Lombardi in games won and Super Bowls won. Whether he ever matches Chuck Noll's four Super Bowls or the 49ers' five really won't make any difference when it comes to how history will remember Belichick and his team.

So can this team beat the Eagles? How can they not?

Not only will the Patriots be the prohibitive favorite, they will have gotten to that final game by beating the two best teams in football — the Colts and the Steelers — in back-to-back games. If they do the same to Philadelphia, New England will have won the league championship by defeating three teams with an aggregate record of 40-8.

What that means is they will have beaten three teams with the best combined record any Super Bowl champion had to overcome.

Not coincidentally, the team Belichick's Patriots will have surpassed if they do it is the 1990 New York Giants of his mentor, Bill Parcells. The same team for which Belichick was defensive coordinator. He will have stepped fully out of the long shadow cast by Parcells for so long at that point, something he was trying to do the morning he resigned as head coach of the New York Jets 24 hours after he'd replaced Parcells five years ago.

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"If we win that game, we will have beaten the three best teams in the NFL,'' Patriots' linebacker Willie McGinest said Sunday night as he stood in a rollicking Patriots' locker room at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. "That's like winning three Super Bowls in a row. The Colts. The Steelers. The Eagles. We'll be rocking for that game. We've just got to get hungrier.''

This Patriots team's insatiable appetite for victory is one of its most endearing and enduring traits. Where others talk and beat their own chests, the Patriots speak respectively and beat their opponents' butts. There is little reason any more to think they won't do the same to the Eagles as they did to their last two playoff opponents. They have a powerful and ill-tempered defense that is versatile and fast, and an explosive but well-balanced offense that can win by running the ball, as they did against the Colts, or throwing it, as they did against the Steelers.

On the few days when they do both, they don't just beat you. They embarrass you.

When one looks at the Eagles and the Patriots, it seems like a matchup heavily favoring the AFC champions. When Philadelphia played the Steelers earlier this season, they were mauled at the line of scrimmage by Pittsburgh's power blocking offensive line. That is the same line that couldn't move the Patriots' front three nor get to their linebackers quickly enough to make running room for Jerome Bettis and Duce Staley.

For the first time in weeks Bettis failed to rush for 100 yards, gaining only 64. But more important, when the Steelers had first-and-goal at the 4 early in the fourth quarter with a chance to cut the New England lead to seven, they could not budge the Patriots' defense. At that most crucial moment the suppposedly most powerful running game in football produced one yard on first down, an incomplete pass, and one yard on third down before settling for a field goal.

That was no different than what happened to the Steelers in the first quarter when, trailing 3-0, Bill Cowher elected to go for it on fourth-and-1 at the Patriots' 39. He sent Bettis smashing up the middle on that play, too. Bettis was not only stopped for no gain, but he fumbled the ball and it was recovered by ex-Steeler Mike Vrabel. One play later, Brady launched a 60-yard touchdown pass to Deion Branch, who managed to get behind DeShea Townsend even though it was a two-receiver route with New England in max protection and using two tight ends.

That combination of being able to hold their ground against a tough running team defensively, and then the ability to strike quickly when the Steelers had a momentary letdown is what has made them deadly for two seasons and a severe threat to the hopes of the Eagles, who finally reached the Super Bowl Sunday after losing three straight NFC Championship games.

The Eagles come equipped with a quick, hard-nosed and well-coached defense, and an offense led by a resilient and dangerous quarterback in McNabb. They have a good runner in Brian Westbrook and are hinting that they may also have their game-breaking wide receiver, Terrell Owens, back from injury.

Whether Owens returns, it seems unlikely to matter all that much to the Patriots. A team that knows it's one game away from being remembered forever as one of the two or three most successful franchises in pro football history. Conversely, there is already speculation that the Eagles may just be glad to be in the Super Bowl after failing three straight years in the conference championship. The bet here is they won't be by midway through the big game.