Ex-Patriot: Brady would rather ‘smash Bill’ than win 8th title
FOXBORO — The chip on Tom Brady’s shoulder never leaves. It’s been there for what seems like forever. And that’s exactly how he wants it. Along with winning, proving people wrong has always been one of Brady’s favorite hobbies. All slights and snubs are welcome on TB12’s bulletin board.
Six quarterbacks taken before him in the 2000 draft? Waiting until the sixth round to be drafted? That was pure gold for Brady, as it translated into a longstanding motivational tool for the GOAT over the years.
So has getting hounded by the notion that he’s too old, or being told every year he’s going to fall off the proverbial cliff with his play severely declining.
Brady just continues to defy Father Time, most recently winning a Super Bowl at age 43. Now he’s thrown a league-leading 10 touchdown passes to start his age-44 season, and still looks great under center.
Motivation?
He’ll have plenty Sunday night when all eyes will be focused on Gillette Stadium with the prodigal son returning.
To hear his father Tom Sr. tell it on Tom Curran’s Patriots Talk podcast, Brady was forced out of Foxboro because “the regime” no longer wanted him.
Translation: Bill Belichick didn’t want him.
There are chips, and there are mountains. That would be classified as a mountain sitting on his shoulder. It’s tough being unwanted after delivering six championships.
“Of course he wants to go back and show coach what he can do. Bill’s been his mentor, a guy he’s looked up to for years, so he wants to show Belichick that he’s still great,” said Patriots Hall of Famer Rodney Harrison, who was on two championship teams with Brady. “Any time you’ve been let go, you take it personally. They didn’t believe in me. They didn’t want me. And that’s Tom’s mindset.”
And while his close friend and trainer Alex Guerrero maintains that gaining further vindication isn’t part of Brady’s motivation, it’s still hard to believe that proving he was dumped too soon by the Patriots doesn’t factor into the equation, as Harrison suggested.
Former teammate Heath Evans certainly believes Brady is seeking to avenge a wrong that was committed. He also alluded to a revenge game of sorts for Brady with Sunday night’s showdown against his former team on tap.
“I do think (this game) means a lot more to Tommy,” said Evans. “If you ask Tom to choose, give me ring eight, or let me smash Bill, he’d probably choose to smash Bill.
“He figures he’ll get the next ring. Just let me smash Bill first.” Evans was only slightly joking. For his part, Brady hasn’t tossed any public grenades in speaking about Belichick or the upcoming game. That hasn’t typically been his style. He just lets his play do the talking.
As it is, on the public scorecard, he’s sitting on top of this war, having won a Super Bowl without Belichick in his first year away, and doing it with perennial loser Tampa Bay. Brady has already swayed the vote on who was most responsible for the Patriots success.
But the competitor in him needs to pile on. It needs to drive the stake in even further, as both Harrison and Evans suggested.
Returning to his former football home, however, should trigger all kinds of emotion. Brady’s legend was born in Foxboro. He said on his SiriusXM podcast Monday night that he didn’t plan on getting all nostalgic. But who knows what Brady will feel when he walks back into the stadium — and heads to the visitor’s locker room.
Is there any chance he gets too hyped up or too emotional for the game? “Tom’s always too hyped up,” Harrison said with a laugh. “Is he going to be more hyped up than he was at the kickoff game, or the Super Bowl? No. It’s crazy. Tom has always been an emotional player. He’ll calm down, and he’ll get his wits about him. But at the end of the day, this is a very important game to him, not just because it’s another game, but it is the Patriots.”
Brady has always been mentally strong. It’s hard envisioning him getting over-amped or unable to keep his feelings in check.
This is a guy who came back after his four-game Deflategate suspension, and won a Super Bowl the same year, putting the cherry on top of his revenge tour against the NFL.
Beyond that, Brady’s Tampa Bay teammates are certain to have his back. They know how important the game is to him, and former Patriot Rob Gronkowski, as well.
They’ll want to do everything possible, to help put Brady over the top.
“(His teammates) understand the importance of the game to Tom.
So whenever you go back and face your former team, your teammates know that,” said Harrison. “And they’re going to do everything they can within their power, to try to get you that victory. Period.
Who do they respect more than Tom Brady?
Nobody. So it’s not just Tom, it’s the entire team.”
Which is how it was in Foxboro, too, when Brady ruled the roost.