FOXBOROUGH — The Patriots lurched to a 34-16 victory over the Houston Texans Saturday night and next Sunday will play in their record sixth consecutive AFC Championship game. A home victory over the Chiefs or Steelers is all that stands in the way of the Pats making it to Super Bowl LI in Houston Feb. 5.

Swell. But if Saturday’s game made you feel good about your team, you must be wearing Tom Brady’s Under Armour pajamas. Call it a warning shot or a wake-up call. The sloppy slugfest furnishes fodder for those who wonder if the 2016-17 Patriots — now 15-2 — are championship-driven, or merely fortunate sons of the AFC East, the softest schedule in the league, and the presence of the ever-beatable Texans.

“We didn’t play particularly well, but we hung in and made enough plays to win,’’ said Bill Belichick. “We’re going to have to play better and coach better than we did tonight or there won’t be much left in our season . . . If we don’t improve on those situations the next time we play, it’ll probably be the last time we play.’’

Belichick is a smart guy. He knows the Patriots cannot expect to play like this and win the Super Bowl. They cannot expect to play like this and win the AFC Championship. Fortunately, the Pats can always beat the Texans — even when they play 60 sloppy minutes and turn the ball over three times.

Brady threw for 287 yards in his record 23rd career playoff win, but completed only 18 of 38 passes (his 47.4 completion percentage was a career low in the postseason) and matched his regular-season total with two interceptions.

“Just very inconsistent for us all the way around,’’ said Brady. “We just didn’t do enough in any area . . . We just didn’t do a great job executing. The turnovers hurt us . . . We’re going to have to play better than we did tonight on offense.’’

“A lot of mistakes,’’ echoed Belichick. “We threw the ball right to them. We fumbled it. We have to do better than that.’’

This game certainly was not as easy as the final score makes it seem. With less than a minute to go in the first half, the prohibitively-favored Patriots led by a single point. Frozen Foxboro folk were forced to stay in their seats and social media buzzed with the crazy notion that we might be watching the Revenge of the Tomato Cans. It was still a one-score game early in the fourth, but gradually, the Pats restored order to the Foxboro Football Universe. Brock Osweiler proved to be predictably beatable and the Patriots tacked on a couple of late scores to assure victory and cover the whopping pointspread (16).

New England becomes the first team in NFL history to play in six consecutive conference championships bouts. A date on the Super Bowl stage with commissioner Roger Goodell has been the Patriots’ singular goal since the Commish punished and embarrassed Brady and the intransigent Pats brass in the Deflategate debacle that started two years ago this month. Belichick and Brady break a record every time they win a playoff game in 2017, but nothing short of another Lombardi Trophy will fulfill the mission statement of this Patriot team.

They were lucky to draw Houston in their playoff opener. The Texans were quite likely the most disrespected playoff team in the history of North American professional sports. In 2017, it’s popular for teams to claim, “Nobody gave us a chance,’’ but if any of the Texans said this on Saturday, they would have actually been telling the truth. Nobody gave Houston a chance. Nobody. And for good reason. New England outscored Houston by an aggregate 150-49 in the last four meetings at Gillette.

It was a frosty 28 degrees at kickoff. The Patriots burst to a 7-0 lead in the sixth minute on a 13-yard catch-and-run by Dion Lewis (three touchdowns). The “drive’’ covered 65 yards in two plays and took all of 43 seconds. Degree of difficulty: a Blutarsky-esque 0.00.

After a field goal by the Texans, Lewis made it 14-3 with an electric 98-yard kickoff return. It was the first kickoff return TD in Patriots playoff history.

The rest of the first half was largely a disaster for the Patriots. A Brady interception and a Lewis fumble enabled the Texans to cut the lead to 17-13 at halftime.

Ordered was restored to the Patriot universe early in the third when Brady floated a 19-yard TD pass to James White to finish a 90-yard drive and make it 24-13.

The momentum did not stick. Brady was intercepted for a second time in the final minute of the third quarter as a restless Nation wondered what in the name of Mike Holovak was going on. Houston converted the turnover into a 46-yard field goal, cutting the Pats’ lead to 24-16 in the first minute of the fourth quarter.

It did not stay a one-score game for long. The Pats took charge over the final 14 minutes. But nobody felt great when it was over.

“I think we’ve just got to learn from it,’’ said Brady. “It doesn’t feel great. We have to fix the things we did tonight and try to play better next weekend.’’

Wonder if Goodell makes the trip down Route 1 for the AFC Championship game?

Dan Shaughnessy can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com