They were just 4-4 not so long ago, but football pundits agree: The championship Patriots are back. Forget the meaningless final regular season game against Miami – into which Doug Flutie was inserted to try a drop kick in a six point game – and the Patriots have won five straight games in dominant fashion.

Three were against the hapless Jets and Bills, and the other two were at home against southern teams not used to northern cold, but no matter. In Boston, the press is already treating a victory over Denver this coming Saturday as a fait accompli, and planning for the AFC Championship game in Indianapolis. Most sports books are giving lower odds on New England to winning the Super Bowl than on any NFC team doing it.

But perhaps overeager fans should apply a bit of the break to the bandwagon. Thanks to their struggles from September to November, the Patriots aren’t just trying to become the first team to ever win three straight Super Bowls. They are also trying to become the worst regular season team ever to win the Super Bowl, period.

Only one team has ever won the Big Game with the same 10-6 record as this year’s Patriots: the 1988 San Francisco 49ers.Patriots fans might object that New England wasn’t really trying to win its final game and should have finished 11-5. Fair enough, but only two teams have won the Super Bowl with an 11-5 record: the 1980 Oakland Raiders and the Patriots themselves in 2001.

An easy way to predict which team will win the Super Bowl is to project wins based on points scored and points allowed during the regular season. (The method is related to the “Pythagorean Theorem,” developed by the baseball analyst Bill James.) Since the 1987 strike season, the team with the most projected wins according to this method has won the Super Bowl 11 out of 17 years.

In a 16-game season, only one team has won the Super Bowl despite less than 10 projected wins: the 1980 Raiders, with 9.5 projected wins. This year’s Patriots had just 9.1 projected wins. (The leaders were Indianapolis with 12.7 and Seattle with 12.3.)

To win their third straight Super Bowl, New England would face the most difficult playoff path in NFL history. Last year’s Patriots defeated three teams with a combined 40 wins to set a record for the strongest opposition in a three game Super Bowl run. The Baltimore Ravens, however, faced four teams with a combined 48 wins when they won the Super Bowl as a wild card in 2000.

To win their third straight Super Bowl, the Patriots will probably have to go through Jacksonville (12-4 in the regular season), Denver (13-3), Indianapolis (14-2), and either Seattle (13-3) or another NFC team (11-5). That opposition represents 50 or 52 wins, depending on the NFC champion.

New England quarterback Tom Brady is often compared to Joe Montana, and the Patriots will try to follow the path of Montana’s 1988 49ers.

Though the 49ers were not defending champions, they had a five-year playoff streak and were coming off a 13-2 season. The 49ers struggled their way to a 6-5 record before reeling off four straight wins to claim yet another NFC West championship. (Like the Patriots, the 1988 49ers lost their final game after clinching a playoff spot.) San Francisco got past Minnesota and then won the NFC Championship by beating the league’s top team, Chicago to avenge an earlier Monday night loss. A 20-16 comeback win over Cincinnati in the Super Bowl completed the unlikely title run.

But while the 49ers may have accomplished a feat that the Patriots are trying to duplicate, they were not the only team to try. The 1984 Washington Redskins were coming off back-to-back Super Bowl appearances. At midseason, after getting creamed by the archrival Giants, they were just 5-4. But they finished with six wins in seven games to enter the playoffs as one of the league’s hottest teams – only to lose their first playoff game to Chicago.

The 1974 Dolphins had won the previous two Super Bowls, but started the season just 3-2. They won eight of nine to finish the season, but lost in the playoffs to the team with the most wins that year, Oakland. The 1998 Packers and 1979 Cowboys also followed back-to-back Super Bowls with playoff seasons only to find that championship experience could not make up for new weaknesses, and each failed in the postseason.

Obviously, not all of these teams are alike, and the Patriots can take hope from the fact that so many injured players are now healthy. In their 28-20 loss to Denver in Week 6, for example, the Patriots played without Pro Bowl defensive tackle Richard Seymour, inside linebacker Tedy Bruschi, and their top two running backs, Corey Dillon and Kevin Faulk. For this Saturday’s game, Bruschi is questionable due to a ripped calf muscle, but the other three will all be on the field.

Patriots cornerback Duane Starks was repeatedly beaten by Bronco wide receivers that day, and rookie safety James Sanders was making his first career start. Both have since been replaced by players who, while not as good as the players from the 2004 Patriots, are at least league average.

But while the Patriots are far better than they were when they first faced Denver, they are not as good as the team that won the past two Super Bowls. In fact, they’re still just a few weeks removed from barely beating New Orleans at home and Brady throwing four interceptions in Kansas City. Left tackle Matt Light, center Dan Koppen, and safety Rodney Harrison are still injured. Running back Corey Dillon is still a step slower than last year. The Patriots still have less depth at linebacker than in years past. And Indianapolis and Denver were still the two best teams in the NFL this season.

Brady, like his hero Montana, specializes in comebacks. To go from a 4-4 record to a third straight championship would stand as the greatest midseason comeback in NFL history. The Patriots certainly have the talent to win any game they play, even as underdogs. But just because they can doesn’t mean we should assume they will.

Mr. Schatz is the editor in chief of FootbalOutsiders.com.