To brighten up my dark and depressing sports life since the Super Bowl, I have decided to rank the New England Patriots’ five Super Bowl wins for this week’s column. This rankings list will be based entirely on my own opinion of what I feel was important with each Super Bowl win.

Coming in at five is Super Bowl 39, when the Patriots defeated the Eagles 24-21 to claim their third championship in a four year period.

The game wasn’t the most exciting, despite good storylines going into the game, with Eagles wide-receiver Terrell Owens unbelievably playing with a serious ankle injury and the Patriots trying to create history with winning back-to-back championships. The game didn’t really have any big moments, and it didn’t have the signature Tom Brady clutch drive at the end of a game to win the championship, which he is known for in all the other Super Bowl wins.

With all the other exciting and jaw-dropping Super Bowl wins that the Patriots have had, this one takes a back seat to all the other ones. I’m happy to have this Super Bowl win, but it definitely doesn’t stand out.

Four is Super Bowl 38, when the Patriots beat the Panthers 32-29 to win their second championship in franchise history.

This Super Bowl was so underrated. This game gave people the impression that Brady and Belichick were at least legit and proved that their first Super Bowl win wasn’t a fluke. People forget that defensive captain and Patriots hero Lawyer Milloy was cut at the beginning of the 2003 season, and the season before, the team missed the playoffs, which had people really questioning the intelligence of Bill Belichick. He and the team rose from the criticism and posted a 14-2 record during the regular season and reached the Super Bowl.

Going into the game, the Patriots were facing an underdog opponent with the Carolina Panthers, who few thought would make it to the big game. That alone made for an exciting build up to the game. The game itself started slow but grew into an offensive explosion, with both teams going back and forth. The game ended with a late field goal kick by Adam Vinatieri, set up with a late offensive drive by Tom Brady to win the Patriots their second Super Bowl.

Three is Super Bowl 51, when the Patriots beat the Falcons 34-28 to win their fifth Super Bowl.
God, I still can’t believe that this happened last year. The greatest Super Bowl comeback in NFL history, being down 28-3 in the second half, definitely has the biggest surreal feeling for me.

Especially right after the game, when I couldn’t talk normally for the first hour after they won the Super Bowl. There is so much that I could talk about with this Super Bowl, but the game can be really defined by a handful of plays late in the game that, if they went against the Patriots or didn’t happen at all, meant they wouldn’t have won the game. The room for error during the peak of that comeback was zero and they executed to the best of their ability to get the improbable win.

Two is Super Bowl 36, when the Patriots beat the Rams 20-17 to win their first ever Super Bowl.
The one that started it all. The birth of the Patriots dynasty. I still get chills watching Tom Brady drive down the field as a first-year starter with a minute and 21 seconds to go in the fourth, tied, with no timeouts left. The Patriots were a heavy underdog, playing against the nicknamed “greatest show on turf” with future hall of famers Marshall Faulk and Kurt Warner at the head of their high-powered offense. The game wasn’t too high scoring, but it was exciting, and I am kind of bummed that I was too young to fully experience this game, being age 4 at the time.

At the top spot is Super Bowl 49, when the Patriots beat the Seahawks 28-24 to win their fourth Super Bowl.
This game changed everything and was unbelievably impressive to everyone watching. It had such a great build up to the game with Deflategate going on, and playing against the young and upcoming Seahawks was certainly a great draw to this game. For me, this game was the biggest game the Patriots have ever played in because before this, they had lost in the previous two Super Bowls and looked like the end was near. Instead, with help by a late goal-line interception by Malcolm Butler, the Patriots won and proved again that they are the best in the NFL.