Columnist Sal DeFilippo: The fish are in the barrel as Patriots shoot for record

Sal DeFilippo

Friday, Oct. 8, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

Sal DeFilippo's pro football picks column appears Friday. Reach him at sal@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4076.

It would be easy to understand if the New England Patriots were a little overconfident heading into Sunday's contest with the Miami Dolphins.

After all, the Patriots are the defending Super Bowl champions and riding the wave of an NFL record-tying 18-game winning streak.

The Dolphins are winless, with an NFL-low 32 points in four games, The team's 0-4 start is its worst since Miami's expansion season of 1966.

The Dolphins treat quarterbacks like pitchers in a rotation -- Jay Fiedler, 0-2 with an earned touchdown average of 0.38, is this week's spot-starter -- and are last in the NFL with 59.8 rushing yards per game, and 237.8 total yards per contest.

Since the Patriots' last loss, the Raiders, who preceded New England as the AFC representative in the Super Bowl, have lost 12 games. The Cardinals and Giants have each lost 11. The Arizona Diamondbacks have lost 111 games.

And I'm sure the Washington Generals have fallen to the Harlem Globetrotters a couple of hundred times.

In the offseason, New England improved its running game by adding Corey Dillon. A week before camp began in July, Miami lost its entire running game when Ricky Williams "retired." Suddenly, Williams wants to come back, though I imagine he'd be as welcome in South Florida these days as another tropical storm.

About the only thing going for the Dolphins is that they play much better on the road, where they are only 0-1 and had by far their biggest offensive outburst, scoring 13 points.

That said, the real question isn't whether the Patriots will break the record by winning their 19th consecutive game. Overconfident or not, Bill Belichick will have his team prepared as always.

The real question is whether the Patriots will ever lose again.

OK, sure, at some point they're bound to take one on the chin, but who will knock them off?

Tom Brady has become one of the game's elite signal-callers. Belichick's trademark is a strong defense.

The Patriots also got stronger in the offseason through a solid draft and the acquisition of Dillon.

They don't play another road game until Halloween. Should they face a close shave at Gillette Stadium, however, the Patriots can rely on Adam Vinatieri, arguably the best clutch kicker in the game.

And when all else fails and they need a break, the intangibles -- can you say "tuck rule"? -- seem to go in their favor.

Regardless of how long the streak lasts, New England has cemented its place as one of the great teams of all time. In an era where players change teams so frequently and any team is capable of winning any game, Brady's bunch has somehow found a way to beat every team in every game for more than a year.

They may not run the table, but the Patriots certainly have the rest of the league behind the 8-ball and don't appear ready to chalk up a loss anytime soon.

This week's picks: Another 1-2 mark against the spread re-establishes me as the king of mediocrity with a 6-6 season mark.

This week, I'll go with the Lions plus 7, the Seahawks-Rams over 43 1/2 and the Jets-Bills over 37 1/2.