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Christopher L. Gasper

All NFL contenders, like the Patriots, have flaws

The Philip Rivers for MVP campaign took a hit Sunday as he struggled in a loss to the Chiefs.Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

You know that feeling when you come back from vacation and have a newfound perspective and appreciation for your life? That’s what Sunday was for Patriots fans.

With the Patriots resting after an uninspiring 27-25 victory over the New York Jets on Thursday night, it was easy to sit on the couch, watch the RedZone channel and take stock of the rest of the NFL as a neutral observer.

Look around the NFL, everybody has a position of weakness or an area of execution that needs improvement, not just the Patriots. The Patriots are among a group of teams that can reasonably expect to be making reservations for Glendale, Ariz., and Super Bowl XLIX. There are no teams the Patriots need to feel inferior to or fear.

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Denver remains the team the Patriots have to match up with come January, but the Patriots have beaten the Broncos in Foxborough each of the last two seasons.

So much time is spent fixating and focusing on the Patriots’ flaws that it’s like taking a picture of a supermodel, zooming in on it and picking apart her pulchritude feature by feature.

The Patriots have areas that qualify as “needs improvement” after seven games — poor run defense, an unstable offensive line, a lack of execution offensively on third down, a dearth of options at defensive tackle and linebacker. But who better than Bill Belichick and Tom Brady (nine touchdown passes and zero interceptions in October) to fix/mask those issues?

The month of November is the opposing quarterback equivalent of walking on hot coals. But the hallmark of His Hoodiness is that his teams improve; they’re usually better in November and December than in September or October.

After topping 300 yards of total offense just once in their first four games, the Patriots have surpassed it each of their last three. The offensive line is still a concern, but it’s now passable.

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Rob Gronkowski is now giving the Patriots the Full Gronk, and the offense is no longer a CliffsNotes version of the playbook. The Patriots have found an offensive identity by going back to the up-tempo, hurry-up, and two-tight-end looks.

Defensively, the biggest concern remains the run defense, which has allowed 4.4 yards per carry this season and 126.3 yards per game.

The Patriots could use some more corpulence and truculence in the middle of their defensive line. The linebacking unit is perilously thin without its doyen, Jerod Mayo, out for the season with a torn patellar tendon in his right knee.

According to STATS LLC, the Patriots have allowed 52.7 percent of opponents rushes to go for 4 yards or longer. Entering Sunday, only the San Diego Chargers had allowed a higher percentage of opposing rushes to go for 4 yards or longer.

But in a passing league, it’s better to have problems stopping the run than defending the pass. It’s also easier for a coach like Belichick to ameliorate.

For all the talk about Peyton Manning and the Denver offense, Denver’s defense entered Sunday forcing three-and-outs on 31.7 percent of opponents’ drives, which ranked second in the league. The Patriots were 16th, and only Tampa Bay had allowed more 10-play touchdown drives than the Patriots’ seven.

The Jets stayed on the Gillette Stadium field so long on Thursday they should get a tax bill from the state.

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Still, Chicago Bears fans would trade places with their Patriots counterparts in a heartbeat.

The Patriots’ next opponent, Chicago, is winless at home and had a locker room meltdown following a 27-14 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday at Soldier Field that dropped the Monsters of the Middling Way to 3-4.

The NFL is like the weather in New England: Just when you think you have it pegged, it changes.

The defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks and old friend Pete Carroll are learning the hard way that sustaining excellence is harder than achieving it.

Carroll and the Legion of Boom went bust on Sunday in St. Louis, getting outfoxed by a pair of well-designed ruses from the Rams special teams — an ingenious misdirection punt return and a game-sealing fake punt — to drop a 28-26 decision. Seattle has now lost two straight and is 3-3 on the season.

The Cincinnati Bengals came to Foxborough on Oct. 5 as the best team in the AFC at 3-0. They haven’t won since and were shut out on Sunday by the Indianapolis Colts. It would help to get a healthy A.J. Green back.

The Colts started 0-2 and have won four straight behind Andrew Luck, who has passed for 300 yards in five straight games.

The Green Bay Packers started 1-2 and have won four straight to share the NFC North lead with the Detroit Lions. The advice of Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers after the Pack’s disappointing start was sage and should be heeded in a few NFL locales — R-E-L-A-X.

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The Chargers had won five games in a row and the Philip Rivers-for-MVP campaign was only missing its own political action committee.

Of course, San Diego lost to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, 23-20, and Mr. Efficiency, Rivers, completed just 55 percent of his passes.

The NFL is about what Rick Pitino would call the Precious Present.

“I really think that in the end this [week’s] game is about what happened this week,” said Belichick on a media teleconference on Sunday. “You can look at every team in the league and look back say, ‘They played great this week, and they played good this other week.’ We can say that about us. We can say that about the Bears. We can say that about every other team in the league too. I don’t really know what all that means.”

It means the Patriots will be there in the end because in a league of flawed teams, they’re better than most at covering up imperfections.


Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist and the host of Boston Sports Live. He can be reached at cgasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.