A SIZABLE BANDAGE covering most of his nose and concealing the battle scar he acquired when an enemy's leg came crashing through his facemask on the follow-through of a sack, Tom Brady looked like a tough guy in the Jake LaMotta mold after Sunday's game against the Titans. But that wasn't the evidence of toughness he was interested in talking about afterward.

“The toughness of your team is built around running the ball and stopping the run,” the Patriots quarterback said. “In the critical games, in the critical situations, that's the foundation of your team and that's what you're built on.”

And if that's the case, Sunday's season opener suggested that these 2012 Patriots are a team built on nails. Holding former All-Pro Chris Johnson to just four yards on his 11 carries, and opening the holes that helped their own Stevan Ridley gain 125 yards on his 21 hauls, the Pats dominated the line of scrimmage and imparted their will on the overmatched Titans to claim a 34-13 victory that impressed on a variety of levels.

“We came in feeling good, happy with the way we practiced, way we prepared, and it showed today,” said defensive lineman Vince Wilfork. “This is a good team win. You're talking three phases of your team coming together and getting a team victory.”

To Wilfork's point, there was really no area in which New England wasn't better than Tennessee. The Patriots had more net yards (390 vs. 284), were better on third down (50 percent vs. 36 percent), converted more often in the red zone (2-for-4 vs. 0-for-2) and field position (starting on the 31-yard line vs. the Titans starting on the 18).

But nowhere was the disparity more apparent than in the running game, where New England outgained Tennessee by an eightfold advantage of 162-20, and picked up an average of 4.6 yards per attempt while limiting the Titans to 1.3.

To frame the dominance a different way, consider that the Patriots produced 10 offensive plays of at least 15 yards, and five of them were runs; the Titans, conversely, had only one run of more than five yards, and that was a scramble from quarterback Jake Locker.

And all of that is an excellent sign if Week 1 is at all representative of what will unfold over the five months to follow. If the Patriots are as committed to establishing the running game as they have appeared to be since the start of training camp, and as good at it as they were Sunday, it is a facet other teams must respect and for which they must gameplan. That only makes Brady and his aerial weapons even more dangerous.

On the other side of the ball, the Patriots' ability to stop the run could be an enormous help to its vulnerable pass defense. If opponents can't move the ball on the ground, and New England knows they're going to throw, the predictability should enable the Pats to get more pressure on the quarterback and dictate the game by putting foes in uncomfortable down-and-distance predicaments.

“One of our goals always, every year, is being able to stop the run and being good third-down and red-area defenses. Today we responded well against the run,” Wilfork said. “Throughout the preseason we improved every week, and this is something I think can be a backbone for us. If we can go into a game and just get teams one-dimensional, that'll help us tremendously. Very excited about these guys. Very, very happy.”

A big key in that regard is being able to defend both the run and the pass out of their base defense. That was a concern last season, so the Patriots went out and spent a pair of first-round picks on Chandler Jones and Dont'a Hightower during April's draft — and as impressively memorable a moment as it was when Jones' strip sack produced a Hightower touchdown, even more important was the way each of the rookies seemed to fit seamlessly into the pro game.

Each of them had five tackles, including one for a loss, and on first look never seemed lost. They played fast, but controlled. Aggressive, but smart. They looked excited, but looked like they belonged.

“We knew those guys was going to be prepared,” cornerback Devin McCourty said of the rookies, which also delivered an interception courtesy of second-rounder Tavon Wilson. “They've been working so hard this preseason, all of those guys thrown in the fire at times, and we've just seen them battle.”

Jones and Hightower were in high school the last time a Patriots were regularly described by words like “battle” and “tough.” Since 2007, the team's identity has been defined by its high-flying offense, having scored at least 500 points in three of those five seasons, while the defense aged before eventually undergoing a transition.

On days like Sunday, it starts to look as though that transition may be nearly complete — as may be the entire team. With its two new pieces, suddenly the wealth of talent among the defensive front seven is abundantly apparent. And at the same time, if Ridley can run like that behind a much-maligned offensive line, Brady's attack might be more dangerous than ever.

The bloodied quarterback is right. This team is tough.

Tough to beat.

“They've been playing like that all preseason, the defense,” Brady said. “We see them in practice every day. They're very competitive. They're competitive on the outside, they rush the quarterback, get turnovers, do a good job covering the backs out of the backfield. There was a lot of team defense out there.”

Dave D'Onofrio covers the Patriots for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. His e-mail address is ddonof13@gmail.com.