Sun Journal staff writer Randy Whitehouse is counting down the New England Patriots’ top five playoff wins of the past 20 years — in other words, the Tom Brady Era. Coming in at No. 2 on the list is the Patriots’  34-28 overtime win over the Falcons in Super Bowl LI on Feb. 5, 2017.

It’s not Super Bowl LI, it’s 28-3.

Blurt out Super Bowl 51 at some random point in a conversation and everyone will wonder what you’ve been drinking. Blurt out 28-3, though, and let the conversation flow.

Patriots fans will tell you when they started to believe in the comeback. Falcons fans will curse their coach. Neutral fans will confess that’s when they finally had to admit Brady is the GOAT. Non-football fans will tell you they watched it to the end when they were actually 30 minutes into Game of Thrones when the second half started.

I had agreed to write a column for this game. It was a nightmare. At halftime, I realized I’d picked the wrong Super Bowl to quit drinking. By the time the Patriots made it 28-20, I had written three columns. If I recall correctly, after Julian Edelman made the catch,  I finally told my editor I wasn’t writing any more until the game was over, deadline or no deadline.

The first Super Bowl to go to overtime also had the most foreseeable finish in Super Bowl history once the Patriots won the toss to get the ball to start OT. There was no way the Falcons were winning at that point unless the Patriots handed it to them. They nearly did (more on that later), but in retrospect, it was all designed by the football gods to torture Atlanta fans even more, as if torturing them for eternity wasn’t enough.

For New England fans, it is almost the greatest moment in franchise history. Almost. It’s No. 2 on this list.

THE PATRIOTS

This was the season of the Deflategate Revenge Tour. Brady started the season serving a four-game suspension, then went on to throw 28 touchdowns and two interceptions in the final 12 games of the regular season. The offense survived losing Rob Gronkowski to a herniated disc in December, thanks in part to having Martellus Bennett in tow. The backup tight end caught 55 passes that year. This past season, I don’t think Brady threw the ball to all of his tight ends 55 times combined.

The defense was … meh. Eric Rowe and Logan Ryan alternated starting at cornerback. Shea McClellin was a starting linebacker. I’d have guessed Monty Beisel before I guessed Shea McClellin started for the Patriots in a Super Bowl. It clearly benefited from the luxuries of usually playing with the lead. No one exploited the glaring lack of speed until the Falcons exposed it in the Super Bowl. And yet, the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history isn’t possible without them (probably wouldn’t have been necessary without them, either, but I digress).

Of the six Super Bowl champions in the Brady era, this one had the easiest road to the title up to the final game. That’s even factoring Brady missing the first quarter of the season. The Patriots clinched the division as soon as they came out of the stretch winning three out of four. The rest of the AFC was the equivalent of the 1980s NBA Western Conference, soft and easily-intimidated. The Raiders went 12-4 that year and lost to the Texans in the playoffs. The Texans! But then the Patriots needed the game of a lifetime from Dion Lewis in the divisional round to beat the Texans, who, need I remind you, had Brock Osweiler at quarterback.  The Steelers laid down like dogs in the AFC Championship, making Chris Hogan look like Randy Moss.

In retrospect, we all should have seen 28-3 coming.

THE OPPONENT

Besides having speed to burn, the Falcons had the league’s MVP in Matt Ryan. They also had a mediocre defense, like the Patriots, which probably could have used a little more conditioning work during the season.

Most important, the Falcons had head coach Dan Quinn, author of the biggest choke in Super Bowl history, and offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, author of the second-biggest choke in Super Bowl history. Thanks to them, 28-3 needs no further explanation. It will always be the ultimate example of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

FRANCHISE/NFL IMPACT

In some ways, it’s like this game never happened. Quinn is still head coach of the Atlanta Falcons despite making calls that get more and more mystifying every time one rewatches this game. And he’s gone 7-9 each of the last two years.

Patriots fans certainly didn’t consider Deflategate settled by the result. Patriots haters didn’t stop believing they cheat. Robert Kraft still gives Roger Goodell the time of day. Really the only lasting consequences of this game seem to be Arthur Blank’s divorce and the timeless trolling of the the Falcons and their fans with three simple and beautiful words “Twenty-eight to three.”

SIGNATURE PLAY

Julian Edelman’s incredible catch on the game-tying drive in the fourth quarter is the play most remember from this game, perhaps because it signifies that a comeback and Patriots victory were meant to be.

The catch is extra satisfying for New England fans because the Pats were always at the wrong end of these miracle grabs, from David Tyree to Jermaine Kearse to Julio Jones, who made perhaps the greatest catch of all on the Falcons’ drive preceding the Pats’ game-tying drive. It also elevated Edelman to Super Bowl icon status. If he ever makes the Pro Football Hall of Fame it will probably be because of this catch.

MOST UNDERRATED PLAY

I hesitate to call Dont’a Hightower’s strip sack of Matt Ryan with the Patriots trailing 28-12 underrated because I think it generally gets the credit it deserves as the comeback-sparking play. But I also think Hightower himself never gets the credit he deserves for all of the big plays he’s made in his career (see this same section of No. 4 on our list). He’s not a media darling like Tedy Bruschi or Mike Vrabel so he won’t be as synonymous with the second half of the Patriots dynasty as they are with the first half.

But there really aren’t many other good candidates for underrated play. Rookie Malcolm Mitchell (sigh, what might have been) made some big catches. Brady made some incredible throws, especially in overtime. The play-calling miscues by Quinn and Shanahan are too numerous to count to single out one. And, of course, the two two-point conversions the Patriots made were vital.

The play that probably gets overlooked too much is the one before “Toss to White, he’s IN! Patriots win the Super Bowl!” Vic Beasley had a chance to make a game-saving interception in the end zone on an absolutely horrendous throw by Brady to Bennett. But Beasley’s futile attempt to catch the ball was unsuccessful. What Asante Samuel is to Patriots fans and Super Bowl XLII, Vic Beasley is to Atlanta Falcons fans.

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