Minutes after passing his summer conditioning test, one last dead sprint away from the rubble of last season, Patriots captain Matthew Slater stood behind a podium Tuesday and looked forward.

He smiled.

Soon, though, the line of questioning dragged Slater’s grin sideways and his focus to the past. Last year, his special teams allowed half of the kick return touchdowns in the NFL. Oh, and the punters shanked everything in sight. And the kickoff team couldn’t produce enough oft-taken-for-granted touchbacks, which were partially responsible for those return touchdowns.

How did Slater plan to fix all this? He answered the question, but more to the point, offered an inadvertent state of the franchise address.

“I think the time for excuses is up,” Slater said. “We’ve had enough excuses the last couple of seasons. It’s time for us to put up or shut up.”

Amen.

After a three-season slog, and four years without a playoff win, this is where the Patriots are. It’s time to prove themselves again.

Blind faith should not be expected. The benefit of the doubt is a luxury they no longer deserve. And that goes for everyone.

Bill Belichick? He is both the greatest coach of all time and a coach who’s 25-26 the past three seasons, one responsible for nuking his team’s 2022 campaign and vulnerable to criticism for running off the greatest player ever in 2020.

Mac Jones? He was both one of the most successful rookie quarterbacks in NFL history and a whiny, second-year disappointment who wilted under pressure while running an Offense For Dummies playbook.

Bill O’Brien? He will be hailed as the summer hero in New England, and perhaps into the regular season. But before he sits down for another head-coaching interview — and that is the goal — O’Brien must prove he’s a better coach than the fiery headman fired in Houston and the Alabama play-caller whose final days fans counted down like a New Year’s Eve ball drop.

There is, of course, one way for all parties to earn back that trust.

Win.

That’s it.

If the Patriots are who they believe themselves to be — the hardest-working franchise in football, as they’ve bragged to college prospects — prove it.

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Exceed expectations. Win on the margins, where great coaching reveals itself. Play smarter, more disciplined football. Supposed Patriot football.

On Tuesday, Slater and fellow captain David Andrews largely spared reporters from the firehose of cliches players are instructed to spray in Foxboro. Their honesty about the pain of falling short of expectations, about what the rest of the football-watching world has plainly seen the last three years, was refreshing.

"It's not good enough," Andrews said of the past three seasons. "And we know that."

"The expectation here is for us to be winners and to be competitive every year. And for those of us who have been here for any (amount) of time," Slater added. "We have not enjoyed this past couple of seasons."

And the pain couldn't possibly have been limited to losing. The broken trust that undid their 2022 campaign surfaced well before the season officially ended in Buffalo. Worst of all, the pillars of Belichick's program all toppled, one by one.

The Patriots don't beat themselves? They finished as the ninth-most penalized team in football.

Belichick's defense neutralizes an opponent's No. 1 option? Sorry, Stefon Diggs just casually smoked his secondary yet again, as the Bills beat the Pats for the sixth time in seven tries.

The Pats play their best football after Thanksgiving? Check the record. They haven't finished strong since 2017, when the last installments of "The Avengers" had yet to hit theaters.

No surprise, motivation waned in the locker room. Players questioned their coaching and defied Belichick. Change swept through the facility this offseason, replacing coaches, carrying out the discontented and inspiring outside hope.

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Now, the stakes have been raised.

Start with the long list of players in contract years: Hunter Henry, Kendrick Bourne, Trent Brown, Kyle Dugger and Josh Uche, to name a few. A contract year is nothing if not a prove-it season. These players' next paydays will be directly tied to their performance this year.

Then, consider the quarterback.  If Jones wants to follow in Dak Prescott's footsteps, as the rare quarterback to suffer from Year 2 regression after an impressive rookie showing and rebound the rest of his career, he must stare down pressure. He must elevate his teammates.

If Jones fails, the Pats will decline his fifth-year option next season and likely move on. His future will resemble the realities Baker Mayfield and Marcus Mariota are living now, as former first-round picks and NFL nomads.

And Belichick? His seat is warm, no doubt, for all the reasons mentioned above. Kraft is on the record saying he believes in Jones, this team and its playoff chances. Another 8-9 finish, or worse, could imperil Belichick's chances of breaking the NFL's career coaching wins mark in New England.

If Belichick wants to break Don Shula's record, he ought to trust and empower his best assistants, not those whose loyalty to him is undying. He should manage games with more calculated aggression to maximize his offense's chances instead of playing to protect his defense in the name of field position. And he must re-establish the pillars of his program, starting with the most obvious and fundamental ideals.

One of his captains put it succinctly Tuesday while quoting one of Belichick's longtime idols, Paul Brown.

"Football is a game of errors," Andrews said. "The team that makes the least amount of errors wins. ... And we have to figure out ways to win. And it's not just one side of the ball - it's the New England Patriots."

In football, the truth of a team often lives in the space between how it sees itself and the scouting reports written by opponents. For two decades, the Patriots operated inside a carefully constructed narrative, insulated by winning, Belichick's genius and Brady's heroics. Like all other victors, they won not just the battle, but the right to write the story of how it happened.

Even the narratives that wriggled out of their grasp -- Spygate and Deflategate -- became footnotes in the greater history of the franchise; public relations scars on the bottom of their feet, as they marched to championship after championship. But the last three years of on-field failures and self-inflicted wounds, which cannot be spun, have hurt more.

"It hasn't been fun for us," Slater admitted Tuesday.

The ink is dry on those stories. Their only option is to keep writing.

Pick up the pen. Prove it again. Win.