The New England Patriots have the weekend off, but nothing seems to slow the debate on the team's place or possible place in NFL history. Bill Belichick leapt one hurdle this week when he was named AP Coach of the Year, an undefeated regular season trumping both the "Videogate" fallout and the almost irresistible urge with this kind of award to bypass the Belichicks, Joe Torres, Phil Jacksons and give it to the coach who did the best job with a team that was expected to stink. (If that were a separate award, Green Bay's Mike McCarthy would have won over Tampa Bay's Jon Gruden and Cleveland's Romeo Crennel.)

It seems obvious to me that if the Patriots run the table in the post-season and win their fourth Super Bowl in seven years, they are unquestionably the "greatest" team in NFL history. To my mind, that is slightly different than the "best" team--better than the Packers, Steelers, Cowboys or 49ers dynastic teams--but I could probably make a pretty good argument for that too. Still, I am amazed how some esteemed members of the football press are unwilling to give the Patriots their due, or in some cases, anything even approaching their due.

I caught up with the opinions of SI's veteran NFL guru Paul Zimmerman on New York's WFAN and was stunned when he suggested that the Patriots probably belonged in the all-time top 15 of NFL teams. Zimmerman's argument: count the Hall-of-Famers. The standard, Zimmerman suggested, was Vince Lombardi's great Green Bay teams in the 60s which has 10 players enshrined or the Chuck Noll Steelers had nine.

I grew up on the Packers and share Zimmerman's reverence for that team. But that was not only an era of fewer teams and fewer playoff games, but one in which the NFL was not yet fully integrated. Both of Green Bay's star running backs, Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor, were white; given that there is not a single white running back playing a prominent role in today's NFL, it is reasonable to suggest that the Packer duo might not be quite as dominant in a broader-based league. Moreover, there was no free agency. So the Green Bay and Pittsburgh stars stuck together. They benefited from the talent that surrounded them as well as from the attention that a dominant team attracts and the mythology that begins to surround it. Sure Herb Adderly was a great cornerback, but how much did it help that he played alongside four other Hall of Famers on that Packers defense? Would Jack Ham still have been the stud if he hadn't spent almost his whole career lining up next to Jack Lambert? Would we remember him today if, after five years in Pittsburgh, he had taken the money and run to squander his talents on those wretched Jets teams of the mid-70s. How much did it help wide receiver John Stallworth to have Lynn Swann wide on the other side? You can bet that today Stallworth would have bolted to be the number one receiver in another team's offense.

From their first title in Super Bowl IX to their fourth in Super Bowl XIV, almost half the Steelers roster--21 out of 48 players--remained intact. Only nine players, or about 15 percent of the current Patriots roster, was with the team when they won their first Super Bowl seven years ago. Clearly, it's harder for modern teams to flood the Hall of Fame. The greater 49ers of Bill Walsh boast only three Hall of Famers (with Jerry Rice still to come) and two of them, Joe Montana and Steve Young, played the same position. Denver's back-to-back Super Bowl champs sent only John Elway to the Hall of Fame.

For the record, that first Patriots champion had only two Hall of Fame locks--Tom Brady and Adam Vinatieri. The current aggregate has two more in Junior Seau and Randy Moss. But might not Ty Law have a better shot at the Hall if he had stuck with the Pats as their shutdown cornerback through these glory years rather than finished his career in relative obscurity first with the Jets and then in Kansas City? Doesn't the man who replaced him, Asante Samuel, have a far better chance for enshrinement if he stays with the powerhouse Patriots rather than, as is likely, leave next year for the highest bidder? And if Richard Seymour, already a five time All-Pro, gets to play his entire career alongside stalwarts like Vince Wilfork and Ty Warren?

The Hall of Fame criterion is sweet sentiment, but ultimate hooey. A team is not definied by a bunch of plaques in Canton, Ohio. The team, as Bill Parcells likes to say, is what its record says it is. And the Patriots record, at least for now, is unprecedented. And unlike the '72 Dolphins, which played a patsy schedule (not one playoff team during the regular season and only two teams with winning records, both 8-6), the Pats beat the two best teams in the league, Indy and Dallas, on the road, and four other playoff teams. They have a tough playoff road--likely Jacksonville or Pittsburgh, then Indy and finally Dallas or Green Bay. If they go all the way, 19-0 would mean the Patriots are the best team ever, and not simply a top 15 also-ran for the honor. In that case, I think Mr. Zimmerman would have to reassess.