‘No hard feelings’: Patriots fans still rooting for Brady

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — As soon as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the NFC title game, Brian Pope went shopping for a Tom Brady jersey to wear when he watches them play in the Super Bowl.

One problem: Pope lives in Connecticut. And he isn’t really even a Buccaneers fan — or at least he wasn’t, until Brady left the New England Patriots to make another championship run with

Tampa Bay.

“I’ll be watching, and I’ll be rooting for Brady,” Pope said as he eyed a rack of the quarterback’s Patriots and Michigan Wolverines jerseys in the Gillette Stadium pro shop on Monday afternoon.

“I wish he hadn’t left, but so be it,” Pope said. “I’m still a Patriots fan, but I’m not upset that he’s playing in the Super Bowl, by any stretch.”

Brady won an NFL-record six Super Bowls with the Patriots, and he also played in three others during a 20-year career in New England that ended when he signed with the Buccaneers as a free agent in March.

Since then, the fans he left behind have been following him from afar. And now that he is getting ready to play in his 10th Super Bowl, many are rooting for him as if he’d never left.

“He was here 20 years, he did a great job, never got into trouble. So why not pursue his dream?” said Kathie McCarthy, who was at Gillette Stadium to receive her COVID-19 vaccination.

“I wish there was some way we could have kept him,” she said, checking her watch to make sure she wasn’t late for her appointment. “But people forget these are their jobs. These are their lives.”

Boston has a long history of watching its star athletes leave, dating back at least as

Elise Amendola / Associated Press Football fan Brian Pope browses for Tom Brady jerseys Monday in the pro shop at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. Brady is going to the Super Bowl for the 10th time, and Patriots fans are cheering for him — just like before.