Rob Ninkovich: Ranking the Highlights of Our Super Bowl Star

Rob Ninkovich is playing the biggest game of his life this weekend. But before this season, the Patriots linebacker and New Lenox native was generally unknown.

At least unknown outside of New Lenox, where Ninkovich starred at . In the high school, his jersey hangs in the athletics area. He still makes .

Read below for my rankings of Ninkovich's top highlights.

But a tough road to the Super Bowl has kept him under the radar. He wasn't recruited out of high school, ended up at Joliet Junior College and then transferred to Purdue. After the Saints drafted him in the fifth round, he was waived four times and finally found a home in New England in 2009.

Still, he didn't really get the SportsCenter treatment until a Nov. 13 coming out party against the rival Jets, and returned one 18 yards for a touchdown.

Actually, I wanted to embed some YouTube videos of Ninkovich into this article to show you some of his top highlights. But the first thing that came up was a 5-second video about how to pronounce his name (and even that's a joke).

It's not that he doesn't have highlights; he's just not "YouTube famous" yet. He's still got some great highlights on NFL.com, and I'm ranking them below.

8. Picking off Sanchez: Sometimes you just get lucky. This pass goes off the hands of the Jets receiver, then off a Patriots defender before Ninkovich hauls it in for a pick. Watch the clip.

7. Goal Line Stand: Ninkovich handles the right tackle on this play and records the sack for a defensive stand. This is a great play, but the only reason it's ranked low is that it didn't result in a turnover. Watch the clip.

6. First Career INT: Chad Henne is not a good quarterback and makes a terrible throw here. But for a linebacker to drop into coverage against one of the league's top receivers (Brandon Marshall) this is a nice play. Watch the clip.

5. Fumble Recovery: Not only does Ninkovich get through the line to tackle Cedric Benson and force a fumble, but he also gets up quickly to make a play and recover it. Watch the clip.

4. Diving Catch: Again, a horrible, telegraphed pass by Chad Henne takes off some level of difficulty points, but the diving grab adds back style points for Ninkovich. Watch the clip.

3. Down Goes Tebow: Tebow Time ended with a playoffs thrashing by the Patriots this year, and Ninkovich got a key turnover early here by sacking the Broncos quarterback and forcing a fumble. Extra points for coming in the playoffs. Watch the clip.

2. I'll Take That: The awareness here is incredible. A backwards pass hits the ground, and while everyone else stands around Ninkovich falls on the ball before realizing he's got a lane to take it 63 yards back. Watch the clip.

1. Pick Six: Defensive players don't get many opportunities to score, so a pick-six on Mark Sanchez has to be the top play. Ninkovich is physical with two receivers to snatch this one and run it in. Watch the clip.