It probably will be sometime around mid-autumn of 2008.

They will not lose before then. They will continue marauding through this NFL season as unstoppable as a rock slide. They will complete the regular season unblemished. They will sweep through both playoff games as expected. Then they will win the Super Bowl, just like they are supposed to.

The Patriots will finish undefeated and be called the greatest team in the 88-year history of American professional football.

If the 17-0 Dolphins of 1972 have the one and only Perfect Season in history, perhaps we will need to call New England's 19-0 the Beyond Perfect Season.

Only a serious injury to quarterback Tom Brady can stop this juggernaut.

No other team can.

Dallas, the likeliest eventual Super Bowl opponent, tried last month, at home, and lost by three touchdowns, buried in a 48-point Brady avalanche.

Those `72 Dolphins hear this almost every year — that this finally will be the season another team equals their perfection. Most years, they are justified to scoff. Not this year.

There has not, since that distant Dolphins apex, been any team dominating the way these Patriots are, dominating so thoroughly in every phase, but especially with an offense on the way to shattering all NFL records for prolific scoring.

Largely, that is because Brady is having what to this point would rank very high among the greatest individual seasons by any athlete, in any sport, anywhere, at any time. His record pace of 38 touchdown passes against just four interceptions — 17 of those scoring throws to Randy Moss — is unprecedented. Giving Moss to Brady is like giving a raise to Bill Gates.

"I'm still in awe," Moss told reporters after last week's 56-10 dismantling in Buffalo, N.Y., of a Bills team that had won four games in a row. "I'm in a dream."

The only reason to think New England won't stay unbeaten is that nobody (since `72) ever has. The thing is, history has never seen what we are seeing of a dynasty angling for its fourth championship this decade, led by a near-perfect, precision quarterback in his prime and directed by the most ruthless coach in the sport.

What else works in favor of 19-0 is that ruthlessness of pursuit. This franchise wants, hungrily, that perfection. This is a team that has a sense of history happening, and of its own greatness, not in a way that would foment overconfidence or carelessness, but as a gathering force to make happen what could.

"We're trying to kill people," Brady admitted this week on a Boston radio station. "We're trying to blow them out."

The Patriots have scored 208 more points than their 10 opponents, a differential such as the NFL has not seen in 45 years. New England is averaging 41 points a game.

Read that last sentence again, please.

Bill Belichick's best bit of coaching this season — the reason why 19-0 can happen — is in his ability to constantly demand more and better of his players. To keep them reaching. Each week, you expect the Pats to suffer a natural letdown, a hiccup of focus, an off game. Each week, they do not. It is why New England is favored by a monstrous 24 points over the Eagles on Sunday. The team's gear is stuck on full-throttle.

Meantime, Belichick is running up scores with abandon, because he can. Keeping his regulars in late in lopsided games. Throwing deep. Flexing his team's muscle.

He is angering humiliated opponents and not caring. His reputation as a villain — Darth Vader in a hoodie — was augmented by the early season Spygate scandal, and grows now by the rout.

The Patriots are the perfect team to hate. Coach Hoodie. The Bling Dynasty. The classic overdog. And Brady is Mr. Perfect, with his movie star and supermodel girlfriends and his impossible dimple.

Hatred, though, won't stop these Patriots any more than any opponent will. It is more likely to fuel them.

I don't believe the Dolphins will finish 0-16, for the record. A team that has lost five games by three points each is too competitive to suffer a seasonlong shutout. Four of Miami's five remaining games after Monday night — all except New England, of course — are winnable, against teams that are a combined 14-26, with three of those four games home.

That means Miami will go 1 for 2, then, on NFL history this year.