FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- There is but one guarantee worth making in the NFL these days: Tom Brady is as good as gold.

Brady threw four touchdown passes and 399 yards as the New England Patriots yesterday snuffed out what was supposed to be the last, best regular-season challenge to their perfect record with a 34-13 spanking of the Steelers at Gillette Stadium.

That's 13-0 and counting, and Brady and the Patriots seemed to enjoy rubbing it into the faces of the Steelers and their cocky free safety, Anthony Smith, who guaranteed a victory in this game.

Smith got into a jawing match with Brady early and was on the butt end of his two biggest touchdown passes as the Patriots blew open a close game in the second half.

"If that's the measuring stick, we're not close," said coach Mike Tomlin as the Steelers slipped to 9-4, one game ahead of victorious Cleveland in the AFC North Division.

"They're the best team in the league, you can't take that away from them," linebacker James Farrior said.

The Steelers hung with the Patriots for a while, taking a 3-0 lead, climbing back to within one point at 14-13 with a touchdown and trailing by 17-13 at the half. But Brady's final two touchdown passes, both in the third quarter, blew this game away.

Randy Moss caught Brady's first two touchdown passes of 4 and 63 yards and ended with seven catches for 135 yards. Jabar Gaffney (7-122) caught a 56-yard flea-flicker from Brady, and Wes Welker (9-78) caught Brady's final touchdown from 2 yards.

While the Steelers had the kind of offensive statistics that usually win their kind of games, Brady overwhelmed them. Willie Parker ran for 124 yards and Ben Roethlisberger completed 19 of 32 for 187 yards, one touchdown pass and no interceptions.

Two things thwarted the Steelers, though. They failed to score touchdowns on three of their trips inside the New England 20 -- and came away with no points on two of them. And they gave up those two big plays.

"We were going up and down the field, but they scored touchdowns and we didn't," said receiver Hines Ward, who led his team with five catches for 39 yards. "That is the biggest difference."

"Nothing worked today," defensive end Brett Keisel said. "It seemed like nothing worked."

One thing that definitely did not work was Smith's guarantee. He was the victim on the 63-yard Moss touchdown catch that was wide open after Smith bit on Brady's play-fake. And he also was late covering Gaffney after Brady threw a cross-field lateral to Moss, who dropped it and threw it back to his quarterback. Brady then hit Gaffney in the end zone.

Tomlin downplayed Smith's "guarantee" made Wednesday as providing any motivation for the Patriots. Keisel did not.

"Absolutely they were motivated," Keisel said. "When someone says you guarantee no matter what they do you're going to win, absolutely that's going to affect how that team looks at you. They came ready to go.

"They made a couple of big plays. I think the read they did on those plays was because of what he said. Maybe try and take a shot at him. Why not take a shot, you know? And the shot went their way."

After the first big play to Moss put New England ahead, 14-3, the Steelers stemmed the bleeding somewhat when Roethlisberger threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to Najeh Davenport, who ran a route in the flat and then broke into the end zone when his quarterback escaped pressure.

Jeff Reed, whose 23-yard field goal staked the Steelers to an early 3-0 lead, kicked his second from 44 yards late in the first half to put the Steelers within a point at 14-13.

But Stephen Gostkowski kicked a 42-yard field goal with 42 seconds left for New England, the first of 20 consecutive points by the Patriots and another blowout notch on their belt.

The Patriots had very little interest in running the ball -- they did so nine times for 22 yards -- and hung everything on the right arm of Brady, who completed 32 of 46 and no interceptions.

"It was the No. 1-ranked defense and all of that," New England coach Bill Belichick said of the matchup against his No. 1 offense. "I thought we went out there and moved the ball and scored some points. Most of it was throwing and we felt like that was a good matchup for us, and I would say that it was."

The game opened the way the Steelers hoped it would on the first two series, with one big exception.

New England went three-and-out after receiving the opening kickoff. The Steelers then put together a 15-play drive that consumed 59 yards and eight minutes, 14 seconds. Problem is, they had to settle for Reed's short field goal after having a first down at the Patriots' 6.

Against the best offense in the league, settling for field goals is just not good enough.

"Because they're such a smart veteran team, by the time you put together a long drive, they're figuring out some way to stop you," Roethlisberger surmised.

The Steelers' kickoff team did what it does best after that field goal, allowing a 39-yard kickoff return by Chad Jackson to New England's 48.

Brady took it from there, zipping the Patriots 52 yards in nine plays. Moss caught the 4-yard touchdown pass between cornerback Ike Taylor and Farrior in the back middle of the end zone.

It erased the Steelers' only lead quickly.

The Steelers' next series ended quickly and after a punt, Brady faked a handoff from his 37. Taylor had Moss on the outside, but Smith bit on the play and as Moss cut to the middle he blasted past the flat-footed Smith and was wide open when he caught Brady's deep pass for 63 yards, the longest against the Steelers this year.

Smith said he was coming up on run support.

Just as it appeared the Patriots were about to blow the Steelers to Rhode Island, Roethlisberger said not so fast. He followed a 30-yard Parker run on the next series by avoiding a rush and throwing a 32-yard touchdown pass to Davenport, who caught it over cornerback Ellis Hobbs in the end zone.

Reed followed with his 44-yard field goal to make it 14-13, but that was high tide for the Steelers and high time the Patriots hit the pedal.

"We've got some work to do, and that is what we just talked about in there," Tomlin said after emerging from a quiet Steelers locker room. "We have a ways to go."