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Watching the Red Sox "rolling rally" in Boston, I couldn't help but think that there will probably be another one of these in February if the Patriots continue on the road they've taken through eight games this season.

Fans will line the streets of the Hub, no matter how cold it might be, to cheer their conquering heroes if they make it to Glendale, Ariz., and return triumphantly after dismissing the Cowboys, Packers, Giants or whatever team advances through the decidedly inferior NFC to become this year's Super Bowl sacrificial lamb.

There will be no shortage of love shown in New England for the region's football heroes on that day. But I'm wondering just how another victorious Patriots team will be regarded by the rest of the country if it continues the scorched-earth campaign it has undertaken through the first half of the schedule.

There's a very good chance that the other 44 states will view the festivities and wish it could run a giant circular saw from the Canadian border to the north, all the way down to the last inch of Connecticut, and then push all of New England out to sea.

The Patriots aren't enlisting a lot of allies to their cause as they pound opponent after opponent into submission. As opposed to 2001, when they were perceived as the plucky bunch of underachievers who seized upon the country's post-9/11 patriotic fervor to gain the love of a football nation, these Patriots are regarded outside New England as the football equivalent of Al-Qaeda. Admittedly, I'm torn over the issue of whether the Patriots are consciously and maliciously running up the score on their opponents.

On one hand, the former high school athlete of limited ability in me remembers what it felt like to have lopsided scores posted against my teams by uncaring opponents.

On the other hand, the 30-year-veteran pro football scribe in me knows that the rules are different in the pros, and it takes incredible extremes for anyone to consider a large deficit "running it up."

And to be honest, I - and many others who have covered the parity-conscious NFL for a long time - am absolutely dumbfounded that the league has produced one team (and maybe two, if you count the 7-0 Indianapolis Colts) that is capable of laying waste to the rest of the league almost at will. It's just not supposed to happen in the salary cap era.

I listened to the radio Monday and heard Tedy Bruschi tell his interviewers that had he been on the receiving end of the Patriots' 52-7 humbling of the Washington Redskins, he would have simply considered it a failing on his part to do his job, which is to stop the other guys from scoring.

I heard the Redskins' Hall of Fame coach, Joe Gibbs, tell reporters that he had "no problem" with anything the Patriots did. Even if he did have a problem with it, he's too classy a guy to tell anybody in the media that he did.

And I've heard people I respect in the ex-jock or ex-coach media ranks, foremost among them Bill Parcells, say that they have no particular problem with the Patriots' version of Sherman's March to the Sea.

But there is a nagging itch in the back of my mind that's telling me that there's something wrong with this.

It's one thing to be good at what you do. But it's another to be so good, and so smug about it, that you make everyone hate you on the way there.

Again, I'm torn. It's almost ridiculous to think that there's anything at all wrong with winning. Isn't that the goal of professional sports? The whole thing is to win, from the top to the bottom of an organization - from securing personnel and playing on the field, to promotion and marketing. At every stage of that game, the Patriots are proving themselves winners. Their personnel acquisitions and evaluations during the Scott Pioli era have been nearly flawless. Their coaching and preparation as dictated by Bill Belichick and his staff of assistants is considered the best in the game today. The Patriots promote themselves better than any other team in the game through their Internet efforts, their team-related publications and their television productions such as "Patriots All-Access" and "Totally Patriots."

About the only area where the Patriots may be falling slightly behind some of their peers is Gillette Stadium, which is already showing some age after five years as teams like Indianapolis, Dallas and the Giants and Jets are preparing to move into amenity-filled stadiums that far exceed Gillette's original opulence. But the Kraft organization's "Patriot Place" development is a classic example of capitalizing upon the team's success to increase the revenue stream, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of that new cash will eventually be pumped back into upgrades for Gillette.

If there's a franchise among the 32 in the NFL that is approaching an overall state of perfection, it may be the Patriots.

So what's the problem? Why isn't this team being embraced by the rest of the nation as an example of what intelligent management and total dedication to winning can produce?

It's because people without a vested interest in the Patriots look at Bill Belichick and easily find something to hate.

They saw "Videogate" (or whatever name you care to attach to it) and were revolted by it, whether or not they fully understood what the Patriots actually did.

Those who didn't understand what the controversy was all about saw the Patriots as "cheaters," and believed that there was now a taint on their three Super Bowl championships - which, of course, was ludicrous.

Those with a better understanding of the controversy were still put off by Belichick's smug, dismissive statements and failure to disclose publicly why he found it necessary to ignore clearly understandable rules against what he ordered his video staff to do. They saw that as Belichick maintaining that the rules of the game apply to everyone but him and his Patriots.

And now, fans across the nation hear Belichick responding to media questions about the fourth-down plays that kept late drives going against the vanquished Redskins with disdainful and dismissive responses such as, "What do you want us to do, kick a field goal? It's 38-0, it's fourth down ... we're just out there playing. Just out there playing." Not exactly the sort of thing that would make a lonely nation turn to him.

Belichick certainly will not lose any sleep over how he's perceived, either by the media or the fans. He remains committed to developing the best possible team he can develop, and coaching it to play hard and play to win from beginning to end, and everything else be damned.

I'll stop short of suggesting, as other pundits have, that Belichick is lifting a middle finger to the rest of the NFL for penalizing him for coaching as he sees fit. I don't think he cares enough what the league or anyone else thinks of him to want to make the effort.

But you have to wonder how an image-conscious owner such as Bob Kraft will feel if, when he accepts the Vince Lombardi Trophy from Commissioner Roger Goodell on Feb. 3 at University of Phoenix Stadium, the 73,000 fans in attendance boo him lustily for being the representative of the most hated team in America.

If it comes at the end of a 19-0 run by the Patriots, Kraft probably won't be heartbroken for very long. The glint off the shiny silver of four Lombardi Trophies in his office will soothe his pain.

Meanwhile, the rest of the NFL will sit back and wait patiently for the day when the shoe is on the other foot. And you can bet that Belichick, who will fully appreciate the importance of perfection to his legacy, will be long gone and hard to find before that day comes to pass.

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com