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FOXBORO - They haven't been in this position for quite a while, that's for sure.

Hardly a year removed from having the AFC East championship wrapped up in the vicinity of Columbus Day, the New England Patriots will now have to claw and scrap their way through their next four games, three of them on the road, with no assurance that even a sweep will guarantee continuation of their season.

"We tried to pride ourselves in being a fundamentally sound football team," linebacker Tedy Bruschi said, "and to have mistakes like we made out there, it's just not good football. The ball's on the ground, they're making runs like they did and they are able to convert on third down, and all of a sudden, you've got a score like that on the scoreboard."

"That score" was 33-10 in favor of the Pittsburgh Steelers, an embarrassment of an effort Sunday at Gillette Stadium, and certainly not the sort of performance the Patriots or their fans have come to expect when the weeks of the season are dwindling to a precious few.

Five turnovers The Patriots turned the ball over five times to the Steelers, three fumbles and two interceptions, creating 20 Pittsburgh points. And if it hadn't been for an equally inept performance by the division-leading New York Jets in their 34-17 loss to the Denver Broncos in the New Jersey Meadowlands, the Patriots might have found themselves facing the inevitability of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2002.

Instead, the Jets sit at 8-4 and the Patriots and Miami Dolphins at 7-5, and the division is still in play - although the possibility of a wild-card berth is becoming increasingly remote as the leaders stumble their way into the last month of the regular season.

The Patriots of years past would often display a great deal of bravado when the chips were down, refusing to look beyond the immediate challenge and playing their best, most mistake-free football, when it was most needed.

But this is a different team. It's older (perhaps too old) in some areas and younger (perhaps too young) to recapture the spirit that helped them run off 15 straight wins after a 2-2 start in 2003, or that rallied them from a 4-4 start to go two games deep into the playoffs in 2005, or to make it all the way to the AFC title game despite a multitude of injuries that threatened to sidetrack the 2006 season.

Last year, the Patriots had no such worries. They rolled through 18 straight games like a juggernaut for the ages before being knocked back on their heels by the upstart New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII. That bad karma reasserted itself in the opening game of the 2008 season when a hit to the knees put Tom Brady under the surgeon's knife instead of under center.

That the Patriots can still mention the word "playoffs" after losing Brady, Laurence Maroney, Rodney Harrison, Adalius Thomas and others to injuries is evidence of how strong their foundation of success has become. But intangibles have their limits. Performance dictates who plays on and who stays home.

You don't surrender the football five times and expect to win. You don't miss chip-shot 27-yard field goals at a time when momentum can be seized. You don't drop touchdown passes that should be caught. You don't convert just 8 percent of your third-down opportunities.

And now, the Patriots have to hope that they don't forget the lessons of their past - even if a number of their current contributors had nothing to do with any of them.

"That's what it's come to," said Bruschi, the "dean" of the roster with 13 seasons in Patriot blue. "That's what is in front of us now four games left, and I say that, but I hope we'll all just look at it as one game. One game next, and prepare to win that one. We've always done a good job of putting both big losses and big wins and behind us."

In years past, Bruschi would not have had to "hope" his teammates understood the challenge ahead. He would have known. Perhaps that is the greatest difference between then and now. MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.