FOXBORO - In this watered-down, banged-up, 2009 state flux known as the National Football League, can you win championships with one dimension?

The New England Patriots, now 6-2 at the official midpoint of the season after yesterday's 27-17 divisional win over Miami, are banking on it.

Back in the early days of computers, the folks at Bell Labs (Western Electric for you Valley Pioneers out there!) built a computer system, Unix, with that slogan: "Do one thing and do it well."

If eight games mean anything, the 2009 New England Patriots do one thing better than anyone else in the game - yeah, better than Peyton Manning and Indy and Drew Brees in New Orleans.

Tom Brady to Randy Moss. Tom Brady to Wes Welker.

No NFL defense can stop it.

Yesterday against the Dolphins, other than Brady's 15 hookups to Moss and Welker, the Patriots were nothing more than mediocre.

The defense was decent, sure, allowing 17 points. But remember, Miami, without its quarterback (Chad Pennington), has been reduced to gimmicks - Wildcat, Pistol ... Nothing has been ruled out of Dan Henning's playbook short of the single-wing "spinney" series.

Laurence Maroney's 20 carries for 82 yards might appear presentable, but this is a tattered Miami "D" without its top tackler, Channing Crowder, on the road.

At best, the running game is spotty. From this corner, it's absolutely unreliable.

This is not to demean any of the Patriots' six victories.

In fact, I come to praise this football team for its excellence at moving the ball up the field in chunks by Moss and Welker.

Miami, now 3-5, had its chance to stand up and factor inti the AFC East.

Ronnie Brown had just hit Joey Haynos on a 1-yard TD pass, capping a 16-play, 10-minute, courage-melting monster march. Miami led 17-16 in the enemy's camp.

Trouble for New England, right?

Nope. Singled up on Vontae Davis, Moss runs across the field, grabs a Brady bullet in stride, swats the rookie to the turf and glides 71 yards for the score.

Uncoverable, unstoppable, unimaginable. It's uncanny how easy this perilous passing triangle makes offense look.

So little risk, such great reward, Brady's boys were one dark Arizona Sunday evening back in February of 2008 from re-writing the secret to championship success.

It appears that a now well-recovered Brady has his mind set on making good on that Giant faux pas.

The Pats defense sure appreciates the return of coach Bill O'Brien's spontaneously combustible attack.

"It makes it a lot easier (to play defense) when you have an offense that can score at any time, and you know they will," said safety Brandon Meriweather. "Whenever you have an offense like that, you can shoot your guns a little, be more aggressive, take more chances."

Miami's 10-minute waltz to paydirt should have ripped the heart out of this team. It certainly sucked out what little life there was in the Gillette Stadium stands.

Brady and Moss would have none of that. In 96 seconds Miami's bubble burst.

Balance and defense simply don't matter when Brady clicks on 68 percent of his passes (25 of 37) for 9.0 yards per attempt.

All the talk of an improved, more balanced AFC East? The Jets posed a severe threat, and Miami is the reigning champ. Neither has a record above .500 at the halfway point. That chatter has dissipated like your typical North Atlantic rogue wave.

Brady to Moss. Brady to Welker.

Now, that's the perfect storm. And it has this football team, perched again with the best in the game.

Bob Sanders is done for the year in Indy. The Steelers have their own problems with Troy Polamalu's health.

As long as this big three stays together on the field, New England has to be considered an AFC beast.

Seems like old times

While the numbers might not live up to the amazing, record-breaking status of the 2007 undefeated season, Tom Brady has again found the rhythm with Wes Welker and Randy Moss. Here's how the seasons stack up at the midway point.

Tom Brady

YearCompAttPct.YdsTDINTYds/attempt

2007 (8-0)19826774.12,4313029.1

2009 (6-2 20431065.82,3641657.6

Randy Moss

YearCatchesYardsAvg.TDs

20074777916.611

20094971214.55

Wes Welker

YearCatchesYardsAvg.TDs

20075661310.96

20095556810.34

Note: Welker has missed three games due to injury this year.