Just winning isn't enough for Belichick's Patriots

So the question that confronts us today is this: Is Bill Belichick trying to be Don Shula, Bill Walsh, Barry Switzer or Al Davis?

And if that amalgam of images doesn't trouble you to your spinal cord, what would?

Bill says, 'Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.' (AP)

The New England Hoodies are now 7-0, which in and of itself isn't all that much of a much. That they are beating everything they see, backing up the car and then beating them again, is. As of today, they are positioned to score 637 points and win every game by three touchdowns and a field goal.

The 7 suggests he wants to get to 19 without ever passing through 1. The 637 suggests he wants to be the new Walsh. The margins of victory suggest he wants to be the Oklahoma-era Switzer. And the demeanor his team has developed is so purely Davis that it borders on the creepy.

OK, so creepy isn't necessarily the right word. Now if Belichick combed his hair up and back like Al, then creepy would barely begin to cover it.

It is clear, however, that the Patriots are bordering on all of those legacies -- showing off an undeterrable offense, piling on points and giving off the fingers-up-to-the-big-man aura that started when they got busted for Cinematography-Gate.

They will say that none of those agendas are in play, but we learned long ago to trust nobody and believe nothing -- in fact, right about the time we learned the noun form of the word "spin." They're probably all in play, and the fun is going to be in determining how close they come to being all of them.

See, the fascination with whether the Patriots are running up scores is misplaced. They aren't soccer moms, and the only way to keep a team from running up a score is to fight back. Of course, in this mega-amoral world, someone might decide to fight back by targeting Tom Brady's patellar tendon, or worse, cerebral cortex, but that's the risk you run when you're trying to run all the tables.

But after Sunday's merciless piano-wiring of the Miami Dolphins, the Patriots have now established targets that are so lofty that if even half of them are reached, the '72 Dolphins are done, and so are most of the other dynasties in the sport's history.

Of course, this means we have to endure the most obnoxious forms of hype when the Patriots and Colts meet in Week 9, but that game will also answer all the other questions about the true depth and breadth of the Patriots' legacy-shopping. The sheer weight of what they are trying to do, no matter how self-aggrandizing and vengeful it may or may not be, makes it the most fascinating football study in years.

Plus, we haven't fully considered yet the other extraordinary fence the Patriots are trying to clear -- namely, Randy Moss and Canton.

Moss has been roughly three times as much as even Belichick could have imagined in his happiest place. His reclamation project after effervescent but erratic years in Minnesota and willful indolence in Oakland has been so remarkable that suddenly the question about the Hall of Fame might actually be worth revisiting -- if, of course, the Patriots get most of the rest of the in-box cleared out.

Right now, Moss could retire and never have his name mentioned by the Hall of Fame committee. Not enough meaningful accomplishments, and a history of wandering off campus on a personal whim.

Thus, his time in New England has been such an extraordinary contrast that, with 12 more weeks, his name might come up in the discussion again. Knowing the way the committee works, one spectacular season won't be enough to win over 80 percent of the room, but it would probably make him a potential finalist again, and that might be the most unlikely achievement of all.

But if you're trying to run a lot of tables at once, one achievement starts to look as appealing as all the others. It doesn't matter which one is toughest when they're all considered doable by the men in charge -- Don, Bill, Barry and Al Belichick.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.