Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, stood in the home locker room at Gillette Stadium on Jan. 22, holding the AFC championship trophy and glancing around at an elated group of players.

“This one is pretty special,” Kraft said. “I love this team. This locker room is very special. What a great group of young men.”

New England had just beaten the Baltimore Ravens to reach the Super Bowl. That really was nothing new to the Patriots, who will play in their fifth championship game in the last 11 seasons Sunday in Indianapolis, all of them with Bill Belichick as coach and Tom Brady at quarterback. Belichick, Brady and the Patriots will try to secure their fourth Super Bowl title during that span when they face the New York Giants.

But this wasn’t business as usual for the Patriots and their owner. The team is back in the Super Bowl for the first time in four years, the longest drought since New England began collecting Lombardi Trophies in the 2001 season. For Kraft, the return to the sport’s biggest stage comes at the end of a trying season that began with him helping to solve the NFL’s labor crisis even as he grieved the loss of his wife, Myra, who died in July at age 68 after a battle with cancer.

“We knew we had an angel smiling down on us,” Kraft said.

During their run of dominance, the Patriots rarely have been seen as sentimental favorites outside New England. Fans in other cities still take to radio call-in shows and Internet message boards to assail Belichick and the Patriots for the Spygate scandal of videotaping opposing coaches’ signals during the 2007 season. But even if these Patriots are far removed from being the popular underdogs who upset the St. Louis Rams and their “Greatest Show on Turf” in February 2002, the stretch of on-field excellence crafted by Belichick and Brady will be remembered as one of the NFL’s most enduring dynasties.

“If you don’t rank them right up there with the Vince Lombardi-era Packers and the Bill Walsh-era 49ers, you would be wrong,” former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann said. “That’s the stratosphere you have to talk about, with what Bill has accomplished and what Tom has accomplished.”

Three coach-and-quarterback combinations – the Cowboys’ Tom Landry and Roger Staubach, the Steelers’ Chuck Noll and Terry Bradshaw and the Bills’ Marv Levy and Jim Kelly – reached four Super Bowls together. They will be surpassed by Belichick and Brady, who are attempting to match the four Super Bowl wins by Noll and Bradshaw.

“In the worst-case scenario, even if they don’t win another one … they’re at least in the discussion” about the greatest coach-quarterback duos in history, former NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck said. “Five in 11 years? That’s insane. And you have to remember that Brady missed a year when he was hurt. It’s pretty incredible.”

With his appearance Sunday, Belichick will be one Super Bowl shy of Don Shula’s record of six for a coach. Kraft contended recently that, in his view, Belichick should be viewed as the greatest coach in the sport’s history because he has dominated during the salary cap era, with the league’s economic system designed to promote competitive balance.

Kraft hired Belichick after Belichick compiled a modest 36-44 record with the Cleveland Browns in his first NFL head coaching assignment, then watched Belichick lose 14 of his first 20 games with the Patriots.

The Patriots turned things around after a 1-3 start in Belichick’s second season and won their first Super Bowl to start a run of three titles in four seasons.

Those Patriots teams were known for resourcefulness and sound defensive tactics.

And Belichick has changed with the times, modifying his team’s style of play.

The Patriots’ last two Super Bowl-winning teams had top-10 defenses. This year’s ranked 31st in the league during the regular season. But Brady threw for more than 5,000 yards in the most pass-happy season in league history.

“From the 2001 team to now, you have seen the offense evolve,” former Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi said. “You’ve seen that team evolve to where early on, the defense and special teams were carrying a quarterback who was developing. Now it’s the other way around.”

The Patriots have gone six seasons, an eternity by their standards, without a Super Bowl victory. Their Super Bowl loss to the Giants in 2008 began a three-game postseason skid that ended this year.

But now the Patriots have a chance to restore a more familiar NFL order after a season that began on the heels of a 4 1/2 -month NFL lockout. Kraft has called this Patriots team his extended family, one that helped him cope with the sorrow of his wife’s death. It could end with him holding another Super Bowl trophy, thanks largely to the efforts of his coach and quarterback.