The coronation has begun, even though the likelihood of back-to-back Super Bowl titles is always slim and a repeat lies at the end of a hard road to glory. Everyone seems to understand this but people who live in New England.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave or consorting with Russians, you know that as surely as night follows day, the Patriots are about to become only the ninth team to win back-to-back Super Bowls and only the second to do it for a second time. It’s right there on your season tickets: “We guarantee a return to the Super Bowl.”

Ask anybody. Ask the guy next door. Ask a CEO or a DUI. They’ll all tell you the same thing. The Patriots are the lock of the century to repeat. Many folks even go a step further. To hear them tell it, 19-0 is the Patriots’ destiny this season.

Fortunately for the Patriots’ playoff chances, among the few people not sharing that rosy a preseason world view are the players themselves. Wide receiver Julian Edelman, who knows a thing or two about the difficulty of making it in the NFL, recently labeled talk of going undefeated “stupid.” He was understating the obvious.

Yet the consensus seems anything short of a Super Bowl berth would be a disaster and anything less than an eighth AFC title in the Brady-Belichick Era a natural disaster.

On some levels one can understand the fans’ confidence. Most of them don’t have a clue how difficult it is to win a single pro football game, let alone 19 straight. They look at the schedule and check off 13 or 14 wins as if they’re etched in stone.

Maybe they concede winning in Denver or beating the Raiders in Mexico City might be daunting, but they doubt it. They look at going to New Orleans and don’t see potential flood waters rising because, hey, “we stole Brandin Cooks from those guys.” A team that gave them fits in the playoffs (which was the portion of the Houston Texans that plays defense) is on the schedule but the game is in Foxborough, and the Texans will always be the Texans so they chuckle and think, “Easy money.”

Sure the Panthers have Cam Newton, but fans figure with the game at home, he’ll get chewed up like a fig newton by a revamped defense that has a $65 million cornerback in Stephon Gilmore to team with bargain-basement corner Malcolm Butler. OK, nobody knows where the pass rush is coming from for a defense about to face first-class arms like Newton, Drew Brees, Jameis Winston, Matt Ryan, Derek Carr, Ben Roethlisberger and Philip Rivers, but Bill Belichick will figure something out, right?

The schedule is ranked 12th among the 32 teams even though nobody yet knows who will be healthy at the time anyone plays anyone and, yes, back-to-back road trips to face the Broncos and Raiders could be tough, some will admit. But when things get tough who’s tougher than the Patriots?

And let us never forget the Pats play in the AFC East, which is the same as saying they get a bye into the playoffs. So, yes, it’s on to the Super Bowl.

But in Belichickville they look at things a little differently. Thank goodness.

In the catacombs of Gillette Stadium, Belichick, Tom Brady and most everyone else understands there’s a reason only eight teams have repeated. The reason is it isn’t easy to get there the first time and even harder the second. You need will, skill and luck. The Pats have the first two but luck deals cards however it wants.

It also requires a minimal presence of on-field EMTs and limited demand for in-season surgical procedures. When you have a star tight end with three back operations already, alongside those 68 career touchdown catches, you fret if you are wise. This is especially true when you realize Rob Gronkowski hasn’t played a full season since 2011 and his new backup, Dwayne Allen, hasn’t since 2012.

Running back Dion Lewis has regularly been in the same boat. Or rather the same ambulance. He hasn’t stayed intact for even half a season since 2012. With a revamped running game that will be without the reliable presence of LeGarrette Blount and his 18 rushing touchdowns, do we know for sure there’s someone to take up that load?

Mike Gillislee and Rex Burkhead have been imported to do so and much is expected from last year’s Super Bowl hero, James White, but who knows if they will all mesh? Truth is we don’t. Not in late July we don’t. Yet 19-0 is a given to some and the need for additional space for a new drape in 2018 is assured.

The pass rush, one assumes, will come from somewhere but it best be better than last year’s 34 sacks because the roster of opposing quarterbacks they faced a year ago should have been playing in the Ivy League. This year they’re facing a half dozen of the game’s best passers.

In the end, this season and every season is filled with problems. The team that has the fewest and solves them best wins. Everyone else goes home.

In two of the past three years and five of the past 16, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick solved them best and won the Super Bowl. At times they made it look easy, at least to the paying customers.

That is their dilemma as a new season approaches and their first significant problem.

Everybody thinks it’s going to be easy. As long as the men in uniform remember it won’t be, they’ll have a chance to make history again. But the minute too many of them start thinking like fans or talk show hosts, they’re the ones who will be history.

If you doubt this, go find the teams that had the same opportunity the Patriots now have to repeat as Super Bowl champions and ask them how easy it was.