FOXBORO — For the next five and a half weeks, Bill Belichick will continue standing for press conferences on Wednesday.

He’ll stand his ground, defiant and dismissive as his program crumbles around him; a Redwood blowing in a hurricane.

Later on Wednesday, the Patriots will practice. Then they will practice again, at least once or twice, to close the week. And soon enough, they’ll shuttle off for game-day travel.

Come Sunday, the players will believe, against all odds, hope and sense of reality, they should win. But we all know how enough of those games will end to know how this season ends.

The Patriots are fated to slump to a 2-15, 3-14 or 4-13 finish. Once they’re done mud-wrestling the Jets in a regular-season finale only a coach’s mother could love, it’s on to 2024.

Until then, what are they playing for?

Unofficially, the Pats’ postseason chances were pronounced dead last month. Those odds will receive their last rites Sunday if the Pats lose, and the Steelers, Colts and Browns all win.

That’s right. In Week 13, the Patriots are already at the doorstep of postseason elimination.

Beyond that, it seems to be pride and paychecks; the names on the back of the jerseys, not the front. There is no collective goal anymore, no dream, nor culture, powering this team.

Coach Bill Belichick on the field during Patriots practice at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)

Players recognize their individual tape from these upcoming games will act as an interview for their next roster spot. Assistant coaches will soon have their agents inquiring and angling for other jobs next season, if they haven’t already. Even front-office members must begin forecasting their own futures, as they project player performance across the league and in the college ranks.

Earlier this month, Robert Kraft believed it might not come to this. He thought the Patriots could reset their season in Germany, facing an impotent Colts team a week after Mac Jones threw for 220 yards in a near loss to Washington that came two weeks after an upset of the Bills. Kraft was wrong.

And yet, it wasn’t crazy to then expect the bye might provide that reset. Not for a playoff run, but to recharge a shell-shocked 2-8 team. After an extra week of rest and recovery, the Patriots should beat the worst team in the league, right? Right?!

That team, of course, was the Giants, who instead pulled a home upset last Sunday. That day revealed for all to see that Jones’ confidence was shot. The locker room’s belief in him is also gone, as reported here weeks ago.

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Allow Belichick, playing armchair psychologist Wednesday, to indirectly explain how that’s the case with an answer he offered about the team’s kicking situation.

“Confidence is something that comes internally, and it comes when you have success. So, you can talk about it all you want, and there’s maybe some merit to that, but, in the end, you get confidence when you do something successfully, and then you’re confident you can repeat that success,” he said.

“Whether that’s in games, that’s in practice, there are ways to try to construct that. But in the end, execution is the only way you have any genuine confidence.”

As the NFL’s quarterback leader in turnover-worthy plays, interception rate and benchings, Jones has no success to sustain his confidence. He has undermined himself, his offense and team. The same goes for Belichick, and his ability to build a winner.

The Patriots have now suffered three losing seasons in four years, during which time their roster slowly hollowed out under his watch. There are two, maybe three, tentpole players currently on the roster to carry the Pats into the future; a future likely without Belichick.

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Rumors and speculation about where Belichick will coach in 2024 reached the locker room long ago. Of course change is coming from up top, where Kraft is enduring the only 2-9 start of his tenure in a season that promises more pain.

If the head coach and everything about his program feels unsafe, why shouldn’t everyone else in the building protect themselves by keeping an eye on the future?

Until the offseason, it’s all hurry up and wait.

See you back on Wednesday.