Foxboro, Mass. ? Adam Vinatieri kicked the New England Patriots into the AFC title game once again.

B-b-b-b-barely.

The hero of the snowy “Tuck Rule” game and the 2002 Super Bowl kicked a 46-yard field goal with 4:06 left on a bitterly cold Saturday night, giving New England a 17-14 victory over the Tennessee Titans and put the Patriots within one win of the Super Bowl.

“It was a big kick,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “We get in those kind of situations — that’s what he’s here for. And he’s certainly come through many times for us.”

New England fought off temperatures that dipped to 2 degrees — with a wind chill of 11 below — to win its 13th consecutive game and improve to 9-0 at home this season. The Patriots will be back in frigid Foxboro next week to play for the AFC championship against the winner of today’s game between Kansas City and Indianapolis.

It was 14-14 at halftime and it still was that way when Tom Brady hit Troy Brown with a four-yard completion on fourth-and-3 from the Tennessee 33. Vinatieri, who missed a 44-yarder in the same direction in the first quarter, came on four plays later and sneaked the ball over the crossbar.

“I honestly thought it wouldn’t be that close,” Vinatieri said. “When I hit it, I was jumping up and down … but I was the only one jumping up and down. Everyone else was still holding their breath.”

Steve McNair led the Titans to the New England 33 before an intentional grounding and a holding call put them out of range for the potential game-tying field goal. A desperation fourth-and-12 tossup bounced out of Drew Bennett’s hands, and the Patriots ran out the clock to deprive Tennessee of a second consecutive appearance in the conference title game.

“I didn’t anticipate this. Nor could those guys inside,” Titans coach Jeff Fisher said. “But a numbing feeling comes over you when you have a huge expectation as we have, and it comes to a screeching halt.”

That numbing feeling might also have come from playing in the coldest game in the Titans’ tenure in Tennessee or Houston, and the coldest in Patriots history, too. But it didn’t quite match the NFL record of minus-13 — with a wind chill of 48 below — for the 1967 Ice Bowl, when Dallas visited Green Bay’s Lambeau Field.

On the sidelines, the players huddled under parkas, blew on their hands to keep warm and fought for space on the heated benches. Steam puffed from the mouths of the quarterbacks as they barked out the plays, and from their teammates as they huffed each bone-chilling breath; at the end, Fisher’s mustache was frosted over.

There were a few dropped passes early — one late, by Patriots tight end Daniel Graham might have set up a go-ahead touchdown — and some bad throws that might have been due to the loss of touch.

“You throw a parka on. You get as many kicks in as you can on the side,” Vinatieri said. “Then you sit on the seat and try to stay warm.”

Then you go out and kick a rock-hard ball 46 yards through the dense, cold air so that, just maybe, your teammates will swarm around you and keep you from freezing.

“That’s Adam Vinatieri. He does it over and over again,” Brady said. “He never surprises us.”

A South Dakota native who’s no stranger to the cold — or pressure — Vinatieri became a local legend when he kicked a 46-yarder through a blizzard in the “Tuck Rule” game and against Oakland to send the game in overtime, then won it with a 23-yarder. He kicked the game-winner in the ’02 Super Bowl, a 48-yarder with no time left.

Although it lacked the snow that blanketed the field for the victory over the Raiders, the last playoff game to be held in Foxboro, this one was nearly as dramatic.