NEPNew England Patriots

Franchise history

Billy Sullivan founded the Boston Patriots on November 16, 1959, as a charter member of the American Football League, with the name honoring the revolutionary-era patriots of Massachusetts. Lacking a permanent home, the Patriots played at four different Boston-area venues in their first decade — Boston University's Nickerson Field, Fenway Park, Boston College's Alumni Stadium, and Harvard Stadium — before the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. In 1971 the team moved to a new stadium in Foxborough and rebranded as the New England Patriots (the NFL rejected the club's preferred 'Bay State Patriots'), playing at Schaefer/Sullivan/Foxboro Stadium until Gillette Stadium opened in 2002. The original red-white-and-blue scheme later incorporated nautical blue and silver.

For most of their first four decades the Patriots were an also-ran, reaching only one Super Bowl (XX, a rout by the Bears) before 1996's loss to Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXI. Everything changed after Robert Kraft's ownership drafted Bill Belichick as head coach and turned to backup quarterback Tom Brady in 2001. The Brady-Belichick partnership produced six Super Bowl titles (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLIX, LI, LIII) and nine appearances, an unmatched dynasty shadowed by the 'Spygate' sideline-taping scandal (2007) and 'Deflategate' (2015), which cost Brady a four-game suspension. Brady's 2020 departure for Tampa Bay ended the dynasty; New England has since rebuilt around new coaching and quarterback regimes.

Sources

• Pro Football Reference
• Wikipedia

Super Bowl Champions won (6)

• Super Bowl XXXVI - 2001
• Super Bowl XXXVIII - 2003
• Super Bowl XXXIX - 2004
• Super Bowl XLIX - 2014
• Super Bowl LI - 2016
• Super Bowl LIII - 2018

Runner-up finishes (6)

• Super Bowl XX - 1985
• Super Bowl XXXI - 1996
• Super Bowl XLII - 2007
• Super Bowl XLVI - 2011
• Super Bowl LII - 2017
• Super Bowl LX - 2025

See the full super bowl champions list for the winner each of these years.