The New England Patriots are an American football team based in Foxborough, Massachusetts. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. Originally called the Boston Patriots, the team was founded as one of eight charter members of the American Football League (AFL) in 1960 under the ownership of Billy Sullivan. The team became part of the NFL when the two leagues merged in 1970. The following year they moved from Boston to nearby Foxborough, and changed their name to the New England Patriots.
The modern NFL championship game, the Super Bowl, was founded in the 1966 season; the first four were contested between the champions of the AFL and the NFL. After the merger, the Super Bowl became the united league’s championship. The Patriots made the 1963 AFL Championship Game, but struggled severely in the early years of the united league, not making the postseason until 1976. After a few good seasons including a Super Bowl appearance against a champion Bears outfit, the Patriots reached a nadir between 1989 and 1993 when they won only 19 of 80 games.
Since Bill Belichick was hired as the team’s head coach in 2000, the Patriots have finished first or second in the AFC East every year except Belichick’s first season, with both second-place finishes caused by tiebreakers. Over that time, they have won five Super Bowls, seven AFC Championship Games, and fourteen AFC East titles, while amassing a regular season record of 201–71. The team's quarterback over that same period, Tom Brady, has been awarded the NFL Most Valuable Player (MVP) twice and the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player four times; he is one of only four men named Super Bowl MVP more than once.