Patriots are ready for their close-up

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Tedy Bruschi has played in four Super Bowls with the New England Patriots. And he has won three of them.

But none of those victories was more gratifying than Sunday’s 38-14 rout of the San Diego Chargers, a win that capped a tumultuous week that started with his coach, Bill Belichick, being charged with cheating and ended with an emotional locker-room celebration in which owner Robert Kraft presented Belichick with the game ball.

“The emotions were high,” Bruschi said. “[This] was up there with a lot of victories we’ve had here.”

That’s because New England wasn’t playing only for the 54 players who wore Patriots uniforms Sunday. They were playing for everyone who has worn a Patriots uniform since Belichick became coach eight years ago, because it was their accomplishments, Bruschi said, that were called into doubt last week when Belichick was fined for recording the defensive signals of the New York Jets’ staff.

“I think of past victories and I think of past championships and I think of all the past players that helped us win championships,” Bruschi said. “And [the critics] were knocking on people that aren’t even here and really couldn’t defend themselves.

“We had to take it on ourselves to do that . . . in terms of this victory. I think that’s what this victory means.”

Perhaps. But you could also take it to mean the Patriots, after just two games, have stamped themselves as the dominant team in the NFL, one that has scored 76 points against playoff contenders in two weeks.

It could also mean the Chargers (1-1), who fired Coach Marty Schottenheimer after a 14-win season, may not be nearly as good under new Coach Norv Turner. They averaged nearly 31 points a game under Schottenheimer, for example, but have scored just four touchdowns in two games with Turner.

And it certainly means the Patriots’ Tom Brady is the world’s greatest quarterback not named Peyton Manning. On Sunday, Brady completed 25 of 31 passes for 279 yards and three touchdowns, with two of those scores going to his new favorite target, Randy Moss.

Not that the Chargers didn’t help, giving up 407 yards and turning the ball over three times.

“Well, I don’t want to say we didn’t block anybody,” Turner said. “[But] we had moments where we had a tough time blocking those guys.”

The Chargers were down, 7-0, before they even touched the ball with Brady marching the Patriots 69 yards on seven plays -- all passes -- the final one a seven-yard strike to a wide-open Benjamin Watson in the right corner of the end zone.

San Diego, meanwhile, needed three possessions to get its initial first down. By then it was 14-0 New England, the second score coming on a 23-yard Brady pass to Moss, who had eight receptions and topped 100 yards for the second time in as many starts with the Patriots.

Philip Rivers threw the Patriots’ next touchdown pass -- which wasn’t expected since Rivers plays for the Chargers. But when he lofted a third-down pass in the general direction of Malcolm Floyd, in wound up instead in the hands of the Patriots’ Adalius Thomas, who returned the interception 65 yards to extend New England’s lead to 24-0 midway through the second period.

San Diego tried to stem the tide, driving 72 yards to a touchdown on its first possession of the second half, but that had about as much impact as throwing a pebble into the ocean since the Patriots answered immediately with a touchdown drive of their own, one Brady culminated with a 24-yard pass to Moss.

The teams then exchanged fourth-quarter scores with Rivers hitting Antonio Gates with a 12-yard touchdown pass two plays into the period and Sammy Morris running three yards off left guard for New England on a fourth-down play with less than four minutes left.

“You know what?” San Diego’s Lorenzo Neal said. “They jumped on us like a spider monkey. I don’t care how you look at it. They just played better than us.

“There is still a lot of football left, but I can’t say anything bad about them.”

Which stands in sharp contrast to the last week when the Chargers, and just about everybody else, were saying nothing but bad things about the Patriots. Brady, who refused to return fire during the week, said he gave his answer to the critics Sunday.

“We’re not going to respond to what everyone says,” he said. “It’s pointless. We’re just going to go out and try to play the best that we can for the one statement we can make a week, which is when we play.”

Bruschi said the rest of the Patriots responded the same way.

“After all the stuff that went on last week, after all the name-calling, after all the accusations, what did you see out there tonight?” he asked. “That’s who we are.

“A lot of us expressed the way we feel about [Belichick] to him. He’s our head coach and we stand behind him.”

After the game Belichick refused to address the controversy, sidestepping several direct questions. But he did say he was moved by the standing ovation he received from the sellout crowd at Gillette Stadium.

“Yes I did notice it. It was awesome,” he said. “I appreciate that.”

So the week wasn’t all bad for Belichick. ESPN.com, citing league sources, said the coach recently agreed on a lucrative long-term contract extension that will keep him in New England -- without a video camera -- through 2013.

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