E-Mail This Article to a Friend Simply Super The Patriots’ latest championship season reviewed on DVD BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

It seems like just the other day that Mo Lewis’s vicious hit on Drew Bledsoe in the fall of 2001 paved the way for the Tom Brady era. Bledsoe is already on his second stop post-Foxborough, but the Brady punch continues, and the glamour-boy QB is fittingly front and center in NFL Films’ annual season recap, Super Bowl XXXIX Champions.

Since Brady took over Bill Belichick’s well-oiled machine, the Patriots have won three Super Bowls. The most recent championship season is explored in-depth here, from the pre-season workouts at Gillette Stadium to the confetti raining at Jacksonville’s Alltel Stadium.

A few lucky fans and media got a sneak preview of the DVD (in stores such as Best Buy as of Tuesday, with a list price of $24.98) on Monday at a premiere screening in a downtown-Boston movie theater. With a number of Patriots players (including Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch, David Givens, and Rodney Harrison) in attendance (along with Belichick and his family), there was whoopin’ and hollerin’ galore as the team’s greatest hits of 2004 were replayed in all their ferocity and fervor.

When the Patriots won their first title in 2002, sales of that season-in-review video went through the roof, and it quickly became the best-selling sports DVD of all-time. Because of the surprising nature of that Super Bowl run and the audacity of the Patriots’ improbable win, that DVD will probably forever remain closest to fans’ hearts. But Pats fans are as hungry for more highlights as they are voracious for more titles, so the Patriots and the NFL have in recent years collaborated in putting together Three Games to Glory (a compilation of the three playoff games in each championship season) and 21 (a look at the team’s NFL-record 21-game win streak spanning 2003-’04).

If there’s any letdown as far as the newest disc goes, it wasn’t apparent at the DVD’s premiere. NFL Films has always done a masterful job of culling raw footage from the trenches of the field and interweaving revealing sideline rants and revelations, and it has hit pay dirt again here. Among the new disc’s illuminating insights are intriguing looks at the personalities of some of the team’s players and coaches as they strategize along the sidelines and celebrate in the locker room. These kinds of privileged shots are at the heart of the DVD, but it also offers amazing footage of individual plays, along with bone-crunching accompanying audio.

After the viewer sits through the requisite beginning "dynasty" discussion, Belichick’s 2004 training-camp speeches get things under way, and then the disk jumps right into the season — beginning with the fireworks-laced celebration marking the NFL’s opening-night banner-unfurling in Foxborough. The DVD then proceeds game-by-game, with ample attention given to the more pivotal matches (particularly the Rams contest) and plays. Interspersed through the film are memorable quotes (Branch’s shout-out to the remaining Steelers fans after the AFC title game — "Where’s all your towels?" — is particularly yuk-worthy), all-angle looks at key plays, and, as is the hallmark of all NFL Films productions, running commentary by baritone Harry Kalas over a superb orchestral soundtrack.

You may not catch the bulging eyes, sinewy muscles, and the flying spit in the pit that was evident to viewers at the premiere, who saw the film on a 30-by-50-foot screen. But the sights and the sounds of the games of the 2004-’05 season will nonetheless provide any Patriots fan with a comprehensive account of their team’s remarkable championship season. (The DVD also has nearly two hours of bonus features, including the entire Super Bowl as broadcast by the World TV team, the halftime show, highlights of Media Day, and post-game press conferences and interviews.)

The DVD provides the drama and behind-the-scenes happenings that supplement the action on the field — which heretofore is all fans had to go by on a weekly basis. By enhancing the on-field play with bone-jarring authenticity and revealing introductions to the folks who had a hand (and foot) in those plays, NFL Films has given Patriots fans a tremendous commemorative look at their team’s third title in four years.

It may feel as if a Super Bowl video is an annual rite of spring around here, but that won’t always be the case. And that’s all the more reason to add the Super Bowl XXXIX Champions DVD to your (growing) collection — because there will no doubt come a time when somebody else wins the Super Bowl, and New England’s Patriots will be old news. At that point, these disks will serve as fitting reminders of the way things used to be, and give local fans something to reflect upon and savor as they recall their team’s implausible run to NFL glory.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com