FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- New England's 28-14 loss to the New York Jets early in the season doesn't mean much to Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
Neither does the 45-3 win Dec. 6 that gave the Patriots a split of the season series.
The postseason is a new season for the coach of the team with the NFL's best record. For Belichick, past results have little impact on future games.
The Jets (12-5) set up another meeting next Sunday at the home of the Patriots (14-2) by beating the Indianapolis Colts, 17-16, Saturday night on Nick Folk's game-ending 32-yard field goal.
Belichick had seen that kind of finish before. In two of his three Super Bowl championships with the Patriots, he watched Adam Vinatieri kick winning field goals as time expired and with four seconds left.
On Saturday, he saw Vinatieri put the Colts ahead, 16-14, on a 50-yarder with 53 seconds to go. He knew it wasn't over. There was too much time left.
"In this league, you don't think it's over until the final gun goes off," Belichick said during a conference call. "Whether we're playing in the game or whether I'm watching the game, till it's over, we've seen a lot of things happen at the end of the game. That's why the ratings are so high. People don't turn off their sets. (They) watch and wait and see how it turns out."
That's what Belichick did.
But once he learned the identity of his next opponent, he didn't dive right into his notes and film on the Jets.
"I'm not really much of a night person," he said.
On Sunday, it was "full speed ahead" in preparing to face New York for a third time this season.
In the first meeting, the Patriots led, 14-7, after scoring with 53 seconds remaining in the first half. Folk kicked a 49-yard field goal on the last play of the half, and the Jets outscored the Patriots, 18-0, after that with a punishing ground game, the same approach that led them from a 7-0 halftime deficit at Indianapolis.
"Obviously, they didn't have a good night that night," Belichick said. "But they do a good job running the ball. They've got big-play receivers and tight ends. They do what they do on defense -- a lot of man coverage, and they're pretty physical on the front line.
"I don't think they're a whole lot different than, really, what they've been all year. They do a lot of things well."
With Mark Sanchez at quarterback, the Jets are 2-2 against the Patriots. The teams went into their most recent matchup tied for the AFC's best record at 9-2. The all-time record between the franchises, including playoffs, is 51-51-1.
"Even though we're familiar with them and they're familiar with us, it feels like every time you play a team, games go a lot differently," Belichick said.
No matter how well they know each other, and how diligently they prepare, some new twists are sure to pop up.
"You've had 16, 17 games, whatever it is, not counting preseason, and another 100 and some practices, so I think everybody probably has got a lot of options in their playbook or in their system," Belichick said. "It's a question of what you want to do, what you feel like is best to choose from."
As usual, he preferred to talk about his own team rather than the opponent.
"I just try to coach our team," Belichick said. "I think you have to ask Rex or somebody else about that. Whoever said it, whatever the context was, I don't know."
His task is getting his team ready to face Ryan's team again.
That includes making sure young players who have contributed so much this season -- rookies such as Devin McCourty, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez -- know the difference between the regular season and the playoffs.
It's simple.
"If you lose," Belichick said, "you go home."
Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press
