Pats are so good they don’t need to cheat

It’s like watching Barry Bonds give up the juice and still jack 73 home runs.

Or Marion Jones passing a drug test and breaking a world record.

Floyd Landis getting another shot at the Tour de France, with nothing but Gatorade to keep him going.

Unfortunately, we’ll never know how great those athletes could have been without cheating. But when it comes to the NFL’s most well-publicized cheating scandal in recent memory, the answer has unfolded before our very eyes.

Yes, the New England Patriots cheated by videotaping opponents’ signals — for years, if you believe the rumors. But since that controversy became public, we’ve learned that cheating wasn’t the reason they’ve been so dominant.

Since the Patriots got busted videotaping Jets assistant coaches at a Sept. 9 game, New England has won five straight. The only game during that span that the Patriots didn’t win by three touchdowns or more was a 34-17 victory over Cleveland, a nail-biter by comparison.

Think they were stealing signals at those games? Yeah, if you believe Ricky Williams shared bong hits with Roger Goodell at his reinstatement meeting.

As much as we’d love to write off the Patriots’ recent Super Bowl titles — admit it, we all would; these guys are as easy to hate as the 1980s Oakland Raiders — it would be unfair. These guys are a dynasty. Tape or no tape. Cheat or no cheat.

No matter how you splice it, the Patriots are for real. That’s what makes their dirty tactics so infuriating, but it’s also what makes them somewhat forgivable. Fans aren’t as interested in why a team cheated as they are in how it affected the playing field. The Patriots have shown this season that their playing field is shorter than others — not because they’re cheaters, but because they’re darned good.

If the 2007 season will be remembered for anything other than dogfighting, iced kickers and sideline videos, it’s the ever-growing number of pretenders. Championship-caliber teams in Chicago, San Diego, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and, yes, even Seattle, have fallen back to the pack. The Patriots and defending champion Colts, meanwhile, seem to be lapping the rest of the NFL.

If New England and Indianapolis are Led Zeppelin, then everyone else in the league is Skid Row.

New England has won its first six games by an average margin of 23 points. The additions of Randy Moss, Dante Stallworth and Adalius Thomas have paid immediate dividends on a team that already had plenty of talent. Tom Brady continues to make a push for the title of Greatest Quarterback Ever. Bill Belichick, while never a factor in best-dressed contests, is becoming a legend in his own time.

When cornerback Asante Samuel threatened a holdout, the Patriots didn’t blink. When defensive leader Rodney Harrison got slapped with a four-game suspension just before the season opener, it was business as usual. When the Belichick-versus-Eric Mangini talk dominated Week 1, the Patriots were about as distracted as a new groom in the honeymoon suite.

And when just about every snickering pessimist with a press pass descended upon Foxboro for the post-videogate press conferences, the Patriots said their piece and then took the field to play some of the best football in franchise history — and that says a lot.

There are plenty of reasons to hate this team, the most obvious reason being their maddening habit of taking home Lombardi trophies. Belichick is as dull as a fair catch, dresses like a homeless break-dancer and looks like an extra from the movie “Ratatouille.” Brady is too pretty, steals all the women and addresses the media the same way a kindergarten teacher speaks to her students.

But don’t hate the Patriots because they cheat. As we’ve learned in recent weeks, it didn’t matter.

They don’t need Barry’s Balco shipment or Marion’s flax-seed oil or Floyd’s additives. As it turns out, they don’t need any help at all.

Not even from a videotape.

Scott Johnson is The Herald’s pro football writer.

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