While fans and players squirmed, Adam Vinatieri knew he had made the game-winning kick the whole time. AP

FOXBORO, Mass. -- When it gets to this point of the season, when the hitting is more hellacious than ever and the big players get even bigger, when thermometers go on strike and there's absolutely no place to hide, everyone is tough.

And then there are the New England Patriots.

The Patriots have a pretty boy quarterback with an angelic grin. They have a poster boy kicker who always seems to hit the clutch kick. Truth be told, there are some genuinely nice guys on what many figure is the best team in the NFL.

But this is New England, you know, where the winters are long and hard and the coach is harder and the fans come out to cheer even when there's a threat of their digits falling off from the bitter, bitter cold. You have to be tough to be a fan in New England. You have to be really tough to be a Patriots player.

They certainly wouldn't have won Saturday any other way.

"We practiced all week in this," said New England tackle Matt Light, "and, let me tell you, it got old quick."

Yeah, but the weather was only part of it. Yes, it was only 4 degrees at kickoff, with a wind chill down near 10 below. Yes, it was the coldest game that either team, the Patriots or the Tennessee Titans, ever played. And, yes, it got even colder as the evening wore on.

It was so cold, in fact, that guys huddled up on the field just to huddle up. It was so cold that linemen were doing sprints during television timeouts -- and linemen absolutely hate sprints.

It was so cold that kickoffs came down way, way short, punts ended up looking like a hacker's pitching wedge and, when the almost 70,000 fans at Gillette Stadium applauded, it sounded like the world's biggest pillow fight.

"It was fun," said receiver Troy Brown. "That's what football is all about. You just have to block it all out."

But the cold, really, was nothing compared to what else the Patriots had to face. The Patriots showed their mettle Saturday not by beating Mother Nature so much as by beating the Titans, who were every bit as tough as New England.

The Titans came into the game with a quarterback playing on maybe a half a leg, a running back who started despite separating a shoulder last week and another list of guys who looked like Walter Brennan in pads.

And the Titans still had a chance to win the game late in the fourth quarter.

"We expected this to be the toughest game of the year," New England's tough guy coach, Bill Belichick, said, "and I think it was."

New England won its 13th straight game by beating Tennessee 17-14 in one of the coldest games in NFL history. It took a 46-yard, fourth-quarter field goal from New England hero Adam Vinatieri -- "It was like kicking a rock," he said of the conditions -- to pull it out. But the Patriots did, which puts them into the AFC title game next Sunday against either Kansas City or Indianapolis.

The win, though, took much more than the heroics from Vinatieri. It took another gutsy game by quarterback Tom Brady -- "It was like throwing a rock, too," he said -- who completed 21 of his 41 passes for 201 yards and a touchdown. Brady hooked up with 10 different receivers in the game. The Patriots are 9-0 at Gillette Stadium this season, and Brady has not thrown an interception here.

A banged-up Antowain Smith ran for a hard 69 yards, linebacker Tedy Bruschi had nine tackles, Willie McGinest had two sacks and the Patriots, when the going got tough, got even tougher.

That was never truer than in the fourth quarter when the Patriots faced a fourth and three from the Tennessee 33.

Normally, with a kicker like Vinatieri, a fourth-and-3 from there, late in the game, would be a no brainer. Kick the 50-yard field goal. Simple as that.

But it turns out that kicking a rock isn't so easy. Vinatieri already had pulled a 44-yard attempt to the left. A 50-yarder probably seemed about 60 on Saturday.

So Belichick decided to go for it on fourth down -- a tough guy move if ever there was one. Brady sat back in a shotgun out of a spread formation, took the snap, looked immediately to his right and fired a pass that went maybe 4 yards to Brown.

"I looked back at Tom and he saw the same thing I did," Brown said. Meaning one-on-one coverage, with the only defender on Brown safety Lance Schulters. The pass was a little high, but Brown reached up and snagged it, turned to the sideline and got just enough for the first down.

Four plays and 2 yards later, Vinatieri kicked the winning field goal, sneaking it into the nook just inside the left upright and just barely over the crossbar.

"Those yards," Brown said, "came in handy."

Tennessee made one final drive, but a fierce rush forced quarterback Steve McNair into an intentional grounding penalty, the Titans were flagged for a hold and then Tennessee misfired on a desperation fourth-down play, with McNair again under a heavy rush.

In the end, it was a bitterly tough loss for the Titans. And, of course, another tough win for the Patriots.

That's just how things are in New England.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.