ATLANTA -- The confetti rained down in the dome after the Patriots win over the Rams and a boyish smile cemented onto Tom Brady's face, the surreal nature of a world championship earned thanks to gritty performances by his skill position guys and no-name defense smothering the offensively-dominant Rams.

All these years, all these changes and at the end of the day, nothing is different. 

The unkillable Patriots dynasty doused a bucket of ice cold water on the 2018 Rams the same way they did their 2001 counterparts, mixing up their defensive approach and befuddling Sean McVay. The Rams finished with more punting yardage (417) than offensive yardage (260) and more punts (nine) than third-down conversions (three). 

Jared Goff didn't stand a chance against Bill Belichick and a Patriots defense no one gave a chance. The "no one believes in us" angle is preposterous for a team with, now, six Super Bowl victories, but the defense can make a legitimate claim. No one talked about the Pats defense this week, and it shown through in the way defenders carried themselves after the victory.

"I've been saying all week, we don't have stars, we have elite football players," Kyle Van Noy said. "That's what we have."

Van Noy claimed people didn't believe in the Patriots defense and its ability to slow down the Rams. He wasn't alone.

"A lot of people doubted us. They doubted our defense," Stephon Gilmore proclaimed. "We stuck together. We got better and better as the season went on. We found our identity and we believed in each other. I would take our defense against anybody."

"Everybody tried to write us off as a team," Trey Flowers claimed. "We're old, we don't have any players -- things like that."

Sean McVay's honesty about his work on Sunday night only confirmed what we saw.

"It was a great game plan," McVay admitted. "There is no other way to say it: I got outcoached." 

Over and over again Patriots defenders declined to admit Goff looked flustered, but the results speak for themselves. The third-year quarterback completed 50 percent of his passes for just 229 yards and an interception. He flashed for a brief stretch in the second half, but the pressure Belichick brought and the zone coverage he stuck on the back end were too much for a young Rams young offense that struggled against that defensive coverage all season. 

"They were able to mix it up well and keep us guessing," Goff admitted. "Especially early on, they were able to [keep us] completely guessing." 

Goff missed a wide open Brandin Cooks in the end zone with a chance to give Los Angeles a 7-3 lead. The Rams would settle for a field goal, their only points of the game. Goff's interception was a stinker with a chance to tie the game on the line late in the fourth quarter. He didn't produce the same stat line as Kurt Warner in early 2002, but the shellshocked nature of his performance echoed. 

The two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl were a stark reminder of time's incessant drumbeat, with pictures of Goff in kindergarten and McVay's goofy high school haircut the last time the Pats beat the Rams. We thought there was symbolism hanging low on the branch, ripe for the taking, and we weren't wrong. The lesson was just different: time as flat as a crushed beer can, the Rams getting outmuscled on the turf and the Patriots refusing to make the mistake, waiting for their chance to catch a break. 

New England was not good on offense. Brady might have fired another spitball in Father Time's face, but it was clear how limited he was in throwing downfield during portions of this game. For someone with more than 900 passing yards the last two Super Bowls, it was jarring to see Brady struggle the way he did.

But Brady got help in the running game via rookie Sony Michel -- 18 carries for 94 yards, almost identical to Antowain Smith's 18 carries for 92 back in 2002 -- and the defense was magnificent behind Belichick's schemes. 

Maybe that's an important lesson here: Brady and Belichick have always needed each other. The Patriots dynasty isn't about one or the other. It's about the ability of Belichick to squeeze more out of the orange than any coach in the history of the game, and the ability of Brady to shrug off a bad night and drag his team down the field on a clutch, game-winning drive.

"Tom, Gronk, Jules, the whole offense coming through and putting one in the end zone in the fourth quarter," Jason McCourty, wrapping up his first season with the Patriots by touching the Lombardi Trophy for the first time, said. "The staff told us the past two weeks, these are the moments we're built for."

How many times do we need to see it before we stop believing? The Patriots fall short sometimes. It happens. They're human and fallible just like any football team. 

But they keep reproducing the exact same outcome, over and over and over. This was a season of offensive innovation, a sea change in the NFL. Everything was different because of bright young coaches and a wave of talented young quarterbacks 

In the end, nothing is different. The Patriots are the proverbial current and the everyone else just ceaselessly fighting against the past as it becomes the future over and over.