FOXBOROUGH — Signed to a $15.3 million contract two offseasons ago, Lawrence Guy landed in New England because the Patriots rolled out their version of a red carpet for him.

An undrafted rookie added to the roster four years ago, David Andrews first found a home in Foxborough because the Pats basically told him where they keep their spare key.

Neither player could care less at this point. Each has since established himself as a key contributor to a Super Bowl champion; Guy a stud defensive tackle and Andrews a four-year starting center for now two title teams. Their current contracts will keep them in New England through 2020.

Life is generally good at 1 Patriot Place, and it’s great for veterans like Andrews and Guy.

And they’ll cop to it — so long as you know that they know life could change at any moment.

“Everyone is going to get a fair shot. I think that’s the truth," Andrews told reporters Tuesday about competing for a roster spot in New England. “It’s about who can perform and who can help the football team. That’s what coach Belichick’s job is. It’s a tough place, and it’s a tough position to be in — undrafted — but you just come in, work, take advantage of your opportunities.”

Back in 2011, Guy might as well have been an undrafted free agent. At least then, he would’ve had a hand in shaping his future.

Instead, Green Bay scooped him up in the seventh round out of Arizona State. Months later, he landed on injured reserve and was soon sent packing. Stints with the Colts, Chargers and Ravens followed, each stop seemingly solidifying his legacy as a journeyman before Baltimore tapped into his previously unseen potential. Guy started 17 games and pocketed 5.5 sacks over two seasons with the Ravens, then became a Patriot.

According to Guy, New England’s staff did more than scratch the proverbial surface. It broke a talent dam, much like Belichick and Co. have for other players similarly undervalued by the league at large.

Guy sees it regularly now, a witness to the franchise’s 15-year streak of rostering an undrafted rookie free agent entering the regular season.

“First round, undrafted, cut a couple times, none of that matters. All that matters is you’ve got the opportunity to showcase your talent," Guy said Thursday at Gillette Stadium. “And once it’s actually seen, everybody else is like ‘Where did that come from?’ Well, it was always there. It’s just someone actually gave you the opportunity to show it.”

Andrews traces the impartial environment back to more than a decade before his time. Competition is universally cutthroat in the NFL, but in New England, it’s keeps its edge regardless of status or Super circumstance.

“It’s just a culture that’s been developed long before I got here. For me, I came in a year off a Super Bowl, the Seattle Super Bowl. And I walked into this building thinking, ‘These guys just won a Super Bowl, they’ve got to be riding high.' And it was like they went 0-16 last year," he remembered. “You see that as a young guy and that really just — it’s nothing I can take credit for. I didn’t do anything other than watch the guys that come before me.

"The things they said, the culture they developed in this locker room go all the way back to Tom (Brady)’s old teammates.”

Whether they knew it or not, the concept Andrews and Guy both spoke to this week was meritocracy; a system in which members are valued based on their ability, effort and achievement. Too often, NFL general managers and coaches give lip service to the idea while their actions instead reveal a loyalty to “their guys;” players they acquired and favor over those they either inherited or don’t view as fits in their scheme or vision.

Politics slither into the team agenda, even one as simple and supposedly ironclad as winning football games. That’s because these executives and coaches don’t want to win. They want to win their way.

In New England, the only loyalty is to winning. This is the foundation of the fabled Patriot Way.

It explains the UDFA streak. It drives Belichick’s dispassionate personnel decisions. It dictates the weekly diversity of his game plans that ask Andrews to run block 45 times one week and pass protect 50 the next. It motivates and steels players like Guy, who deserve senses of comfort and job security after realizing their professional dreams in the prime of their careers and yet resist them as temptations.

“You can’t change because you won (the Super Bowl)," Guy said. "The only thing you can do is continue to work harder and harder to try to get back and try to improve your everyday life and improve your next year coming up and try to recover from anything that you had.”

The Patriots won’t play meaningful football for another four months, when the Steelers visit Gillette Stadium. The in-house competition, however, is constant and thriving; twelve months a year, seven days a week and 24 hours a day, no matter how many banners may hang overhead.

Said Guy: “Your job’s in your hands. You can do whatever you need to earn your job. And this is what makes this organization so good.”