The door has closed on New England's 2012-13 campaign. For many teams standards the Patriots had a very successful season. New England won the AFC East with a 12-4 regular season record. Brady and Belichick went on to soundly take down the Houston Texans in Foxborough 41-28.

The majority of teams in the NFL would LOVE to have won their division, enter the playoffs and earn a seat in the division round. BUT when we're talking about The Pats: 5 Superbowl appearances since 2001, 9 straight AFC East divisional titles and the best quarterback-coach combination this era, then comes the ultimate high standards forced on the team.

Free agency is up for the likes of Coach Belichick and Wes Welker. Belichick is on record for saying he expects to be back next season unless told otherwise.

Our team at R.C. Mason thinks that the Belichick offense is an edge that New England can continue to exploit for future seasons. Pay Belichick his money. He and Brady have turned New England from an afterthought to the dominate team in the AFC East for every season since the turn of the millennium.

Wes Welker is another player that deserves his paycheck. Although it drives us crazy when he drops wide open passes when it really counts in the postseason his talent to the wide receiver corps is irreplaceable.

New England is so offensive minded but we rank 29th in the league in pass defense. That's a huge leak.

We'll see how management handles the coaching and free agency situation. Our crew at R.C. Mason are optimistic about the 2013-14 season. This season we took one step back from being in Superbowl last year. However New England's ability to run deep in the postseason and a boost to jump over that hurdle can lead the Patriots to a Superbowl berth and title.