The beverage du jour at NFL Insider is sugary enough to strip tooth enamel.

Only a thimbleful for me as it tastes peculiar, this red-blue swirl of New England Kool-Aid that true Patriots believers guzzle out of growlers. But down the hatch it goes, because it’s time to acknowledge the obvious.

The New England Patriots are smarter than the rest of the NFL. They are better at football than their 31 rivals. Better at teaching it. Better at scouting it. Better at game-planning it.

Every year, it’s the same thing. Bill Belichick finds players off scrap heaps, buffs out the ugliness, and fits the pieces into a machine that spits out AFC East titles and playoff berths. It’s only Week 3, and the Patriots look like a near-lock to win the East.


They live inside the Super Bowl hunt, defying an NFL system meant to punish success.

NFL teams cannot spend away their mistakes, like the big-market baseball teams can. (This just in: The New York Yankees clinched their 23rd consecutive winning season and the Dodgers, after spending $300 million on their player payroll, are on the verge of winning a third straight NL West title. Guess they’re just smarter than everyone else.)

The Patriots won the Super Bowl seven months ago by outsmarting the Seahawks.

This is fact. Proof of New England’s greater attention to detail comes from an NFL Network special, “Do Your Job.” A football documentary, it examines the Super Bowl 49 victory.


The show feels like an infomercial. The Seahawks blundered in key moments, as did an official who missed a Pats defender’s flagrant trip.

But the conclusion that the Patriots won by mastering details is supported by the audio of Patriots in-game communications and video of their Super Bowl practices.

As the Seahawks marched toward what could’ve been a clinching touchdown, Belichick performed with poise.

He noticed, for instance, that the Seahawks looked confused before attempting the goal-line play at game’s end, and responded with a unique personnel grouping, well-suited to Seattle’s configuration.


He wisely held off on calling a timeout, while the discipline he established with assistants kept the airways clean.

Footage of Patriots practices from days earlier shows the granular preparations that allowed a rookie cornerback, Malcolm Butler, to make the game-winning interception. The same Butler stands 5-foot-91/2. He tested as mediocre in sprints and went undrafted.

The Patriots’ sequel this year qualifies as more of the same.

In the season opener, the Patriots plugged two rookies and a stand-in into their offensive line. Then quarterback Tom Brady threw four touchdowns passes, three to Rob Gronkowski, and they beat the Steelers, 28-21.


Last week, it was on to Buffalo, where the Bills awaited with one of the NFL’s more talented defenses and a defensive expert in new head coach Rex Ryan.

The Patriots won 40-32.

A running back named Dion Lewis performed well in both victories. The Patriots got him for pennies, after two AFC teams that are thin at running back, the Colts and Browns, each discarded him.

Tune in to a Patriots game, and you’ll see Julian Edelman catching Brady’s passes for big plays. A former Kent State quarterback, he joined the Patriots as a seventh-round draftee.


Are the Patriots cheaters? “Spygate” says yes. For their rivals’ sanity, perhaps it’s better to steer clear of the better explanation for the success. They really are smarter.