FOXBOROUGH — Sunday’s late afternoon matchup between the New England Patriots (9-2) and Green Bay Packers (8-3) represents a lot of things.

It’s a battle between arguably the two best teams in football at Thanksgiving, a time when teams are beginning to establish their identities and pave the road for a possible postseason run.

As such, it’s being billed as a potential Super Bowl preview.

It’s also the first matchup, as starting quarterbacks, between future Hall of Fame passers Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. The two have combined for four Super Bowl titles, three Super Bowl MVPs and three regular season NFL MVP awards.

But this will be the first time the duo has taken the field together, save for some mop-up duty for Rodgers in a New England 35-0 win in Green Bay over Brett Favre’s team in 2006.

The two — Brady the 37-year-old legend defying Father Time and Rodgers the 30-year-old in the prime of his career — hit this inaugural Hall of Fame batter playing extremely well.

Brady turned around a slow start to now find himself with the No. 6 passer rating in the league through 11 games, while also ranking in the top six in attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns and interception percentage.

Rodgers has been even better. He paces the NFL in passer rating at 119.2, thanks largely to his 30 touchdowns and just three interceptions. But it’s not like Rodgers avoids mistakes by not making any plays, though, as he also leads the NFL in average per attempt.

“I don’t think it takes too long to turn on the film and figure out that Aaron Rodgers is playing at an extremely high level right now, and obviously even higher at home, which is where we have to go face these guys,” Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia said. “I think he’s really dialed into what they are trying to do and how they are trying to attack the defense. I think every week teams are trying to figure out how to get him out of that rhythm and how to take him out of his game.

“He’s just done a good job of continuing to do what he does at an extremely high level. We’ve really got to try to do whatever we can to make the day difficult for him and try to keep the pressure on him. He’s playing at a very high level right now, so it’s not hard to see that on film. He’s really the driving force right now with this offense.”

While the Patriots’ pass defense has been playing at a high level over the last month in matchups with star-studded offenses from the Broncos, Colts and Lions, Rodgers’ combination of skills is yet another tough test.

What kind of challenge does head coach Bill Belichick see in Rodgers?

“Everything. He’s a great player. He does a tremendous job, really at everything,” Belichick said. “He’s got no weak points; makes every throw. (He) handles the team very well at the line: checks and adjustments, he certainly sees the defense well. (He) uses all his weapons, makes great throws from the short ones (to) intermediate, down the field, sidelines, back shoulders, deep routes and then he has a great ability to extend plays, either sliding in the pocket or at times scrambling outside the pocket. They’ve made a lot of plays this year on things like that where he either buys extra time or just flat-out gets away from the rush and lets the receivers uncover. He’s a hard guy to tackle, hard guy to get and a very good thrower, very accurate thrower and has great vision. He’s really good.”

The bulk of Rodgers’ production goes to the duo of Jordy Nelson (68 catches, 1,066 yards and nine touchdowns) and Randall Cobb (58-837-10).

The Patriots counter that with a veteran cornerback duo of Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner that played its best game of the year last Sunday, holding Detroit’s Golden Tate and Calvin Johnson very much in check.

“For us, this is the NFL. Every week everyone is extremely, extremely talented and very good and very dangerous,” Patricia said of another challenge for his new-look pass defense. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be in the league. Obviously, this is a huge challenge for us this weekend (with) all of the receivers and skilled players they have. Aaron Rodgers does a phenomenal job controlling this offense.”

In the end, it’s unlikely the Patriots defense will be able to shut down the Packers’ No. 1 scoring attack. So Brady and his pass-catching mates will be looking to once again match the production on the scoreboard, as was the case in past weeks against Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck. Given that New England has scored 34 or more points in four straight games and six of the last seven weeks.

Brady and Rodgers are riding high after early season struggles that led the latter to tell everyone to “relax” while the former simply rode out the storm of mild criticism. Now they meet for the first time.

What does Belichick see as the similarities between Brady and Rodgers and the way they’ve elevated their games over the course of 2014?

“They both wear No. 12,” Belichick concluded.

He might as well just have said it is what it is — which is a battle between two of the best quarterbacks in the game in a potential Super Bowl preview, a game in which there is a possibility for a lot of points to be scored. It’s the best the NFL has to offer right now.