Two more steps.

That's all the New England Patriots need to take to reach the heights of NFLimmortality as only the second unbeaten and unitied team in modern pro football history.

Now the question seems to be where the Patriots stack up among the best of all time.

A common mistake we all make when trying to answer such sports questions is trying to compare great teams from one era to great teams of another.

The only true way to judge the greatness of a team is by how it stacks up to its contemporaries.

The 1972 Miami Dolphins, for example, finished 17-0, but were not a dominant team. They had to rally late to beat Cleveland in the first round of the playoffs that year, did not play a difficult schedule and were underdogs in the Super Bowl against Washington.

But they won them all.

The Patriots will have to win them all to stay alongside that Miami team.

And, let's face it. They probably will.

This New England team makes the perfect bad guy. They got caught cheating, their coach never smiles, their quarterback jogs off the field after every game without shaking hands, their star wide receiver once mooned fans in Minnesota, quit on Oakland and has openly admitted that he plays hard only when he feels like it.

Oh, yeah, and one of their safeties, Rodney Harrison, was named the league's dirtiest player in a poll of his peers.

And they represent a city that already has the World Series champion Red Sox — a juggernaut that's not going away anytime soon — and the Celtics, who have put together a team that may be headed for the NBAchampionship.

That's more than enough for one sports city. I found myself cheering when then-unbeaten Boston College lost late in the college football season — and those poor souls never did anything to anybody.

So what is the Patriots' rightful place in history?

They've proven they can win games by blowing people out, after trailing at halftime or by needing a late drive to secure a victory.

They beat the defending Super Bowl champion Colts in their dome and knocked off the best the NFChad to offer this year — the Dallas Cowboys — by three touchdowns on their turf.

They've won without a running game. They've won with a running game.

No pro football team has ever won 19 games in a single season. In this era of parity, in a league that prides itself on unpredictability, such as the Cowboys losing at home to the New York Giants in the first round of the playoffs or the Green Bay Packers getting lit up by a sub-.500 Chicago Bears team late in the season, the Patriots march on flawlessly.

That any NFLteam has a shot at going 19-0 this late in the season is unfathomable.

The Patriots are the ultimate bad guys. Hate them if you must.

But on any given Sunday, you, too, can lose to New England.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle.