PORTLAND — When Melissa Johnnidis started dating Tim Higgins in 2019, the Arlington, Texas native took note of the three hours every weekend Higgins would drive through east Texas to see her. She wanted to return the investment, and she found a way.

Higgins is a lifelong New England Patriots fan. Johnnidis grew up just a short drive from the Dallas Cowboys’ home stadium, but had never loved football. She figured it was time to learn.

“The least I could do is be into this Sunday football game,” said Johnnidis, 29, a child psychiatrist living in Portland. “That was definitely a motivator. I need to understand, I need to figure out what’s going on. Because I want us to enjoy this.”

But there was a problem. Seemingly overnight, the championships and victories Higgins shared turned into dark days of defeats. The team regressed, falling to the bottom of the league. As dating turned into engagement, Johnnidis joined her fiance’s passion, even without a hint of the triumphs she had heard about.

“I’ve been burned,” she said. “He’s been telling me, ‘Last year was the rebuilding year, this year it’s going to be fine. You’re going to see what I grew up with.'”

But this year, he was right. The good times are back in New England as, out of seemingly nowhere, the Patriots have returned to being a championship contender. After winning eight games over the previous two seasons and having to restart at coach, quarterback and throughout the roster, the Patriots on Sunday are up against the Denver Broncos – a win away from returning to the Super Bowl for the first time in seven years.

For Patriots fans — old and new — it’s been a thrill ride.

“Oh my God, it’s so fun,” Johnnidis said, sitting in a living room decorated with Patriots throws. “I think it’s so funny that this year, I’m seeing that Pats fan that grew up.”

THE HOPE IS BACK

For fans, it’s also been the return of the memories and experiences of watching a team that regularly pursued championships – and won six of them – over a nearly 20-year span. Experiences they weren’t sure they’d see again.

“Football purgatory, that’s where we’re supposed to be,” said Hartford native Chris Sharples, 43.

Sharples was the subject of a 2018 News Center Maine story billing him “arguably Maine’s biggest Patriots fan.” His basement — “a fan cave,” he calls it — is a shrine, with 43 jerseys and thousands of Patriots-themed pieces of memorabilia, from hats to photos to cornhole beanbags to a pool table.

“It’s absolutely crazy. I was expecting a very long run of non-relevant Patriots football for the foreseeable future,” he said. “The way last year ended, I’m like, ‘Am I ever going to see an actual Super Bowl win by the Patriots ever again? It may not happen in my lifetime.'”

Kennebunkport’s Jodi Kramer, 55, has been a “fan since birth,” and doesn’t miss a game, even when the Patriots fell into their five-year funk following the departure of celebrated quarterback Tom Brady.

“They made it really trying,” she said. “You just went in knowing you probably had no shot whatsoever. It (was) just so depressing.”

This year, she said, it’s been back. The hope. The anticipation of every game. The emotions rising and falling with each play.

“There was a lot of pacing the floor,” she said, “and I think at one point I was even laying on my stomach on the floor after a fumble.”

She’ll be at the game in Denver on Sunday with her sister, Kari. It’s not the first time the two have made a Patriots trip together; they went to Arizona for Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, with their terminally ill father.

“(This year) it’s kept growing and growing and building and building,” she said. “You think you can’t get more excited about the Patriots … and this is almost better than that, because you just didn’t see it coming.”

Portland’s Jeff Shaw, 49, has been going to Patriots games since 2009, and the past two years has held season tickets. He often goes with his sons Brayden, 21, and Silas, 11. They went together to see the team’s first playoff game in four years, when New England beat the Los Angeles Chargers, 16-3, on Jan. 11.

“It kind of feels like the world’s normal again,” Jeff Shaw said. “Since (Tom Brady left), everything’s gone kind of dark. It really feels like ‘We’re back.'”

Brayden’s first game was in 2014, when he saw the Patriots beat the Broncos in November. New England ended up winning the Super Bowl that season, then again in the 2016 and 2018 seasons. He said this year has been the first time that energy has returned to the stadium.

“Two years ago, I went to one of the games with Bailey Zappe starting (at quarterback) and the whole stadium was sitting down. … It was not the same presence as it was in the 2010s,” he said. “(This year) has been completely electric. Everybody’s on the same page, everybody’s making noise. It’s a completely different experience, the same as it was when I was a kid going to the Brady games.”

DRAKE ‘DRAKE MAYE’ MAYE

For Jeff, the team’s rise this year has come with an added benefit. Brayden got to see the winning years with Brady, but Silas was too young. Jeff hopes that with Drake Maye at the helm, Silas can see what he was missing.

“He’s really excited to think Drake could be his version of that,” he said. “To be able to bring him to games to see it in person has been just an amazing experience for me as a father.”

Silas’s game day attire? A Mac Jones No. 10 jersey, with “Maye” taped over “Jones.” Recently, it was changed to “MVP.”

“They say ‘You missed out on that, but you’re not going to miss out on this,'” Silas said.

The ascension of Maye to becoming the NFL’s potential Most Valuable Player has been the main storyline of the Patriots’ storybook season. Maye’s popularity has reached a frenzied level in New England, with his Drake “Drake Maye” Maye nickname becoming a nationally trending topic and his wife, Ann Michael Maye, earning celebrity for her online baking series.

For Patriots fans who got to idolize Brady, Maye provides them with another fan favorite quarterback. Topsham’s Landen Chase, a 20-year-old student at the University of Maine, is a Brady fan with seven of his jerseys. Maye’s arrival, he said, has made it easy to turn the page from past to future.

“I think it’s great, because it brings New England together,” he said. “I have friends who don’t watch sports, but one day they came up to me and were like, ‘What is this about the whole ‘I love Drake Maye’ thing?’ People that didn’t even know sports, didn’t care, were engaged and talking about it.”

Chase said it’s possible to love Maye without losing sight of Brady’s impact and accomplishments.

“He was the reason I fell in love with sports,” he said. “There will never be forgetting him. Every time I think about football, he’s the first name that comes up.”

It’s the same way for Higgins, who, before meeting Johnnidis in Texas, was as big a fan of Brady as he was the team.

“That man is everything,” said Higgins, a 31-year-old physical therapist.

Even after Brady left, that didn’t change. The two attended the Roast of Tom Brady, held in Los Angeles in May 2024.

“I said ‘Tom Brady’s getting roasted, that’ll be fun to watch,'” he said. “She was like, ‘Buy tickets.'”

He’s had no trouble opening his heart to Maye, however. And the two have been enjoying sharing what it’s like to watch a winning team, even making it to Foxborough to see the Chargers playoff game together.

“Oh yeah, we’re back,” Higgins said. “And everyone else knows it too. If you follow anything on the internet, they’re back to hating the Patriots, and that’s how you know everything’s right.”