Maybe it’s the foot of snow outside my window here in Massachusetts that won’t let me move on. But Tom Brady’s recent declaration that you “won’t catch me dead living in the Northeast anymore” is still bothering me.
That was a Brady bomb last week, a direct shot across the New England bow from the new pirate captain. From a guy who wasn’t just one of us, but rather the embodiment of what a Northeasterner should be: Tough, hard-working, generous and loyal. Principled and courageous with a knack for modesty. For 20 years, Brady was the chiseled face of six New England states.
But the real Tom Brady has revealed himself in 2020, and he’s not the guy we thought he was.
Brady has made his choices this year, and they read as a short-cut manifesto: Individual glory over dynastic team loyalty. A dream team over a hard-work retool. Florida sun over New England character and passion.
This is not the pick-199 that rose above any and all obstacles in his way en route to six Lombardi trophies. This is a guy who has decided to take the easy way out.
And Brady’s now made it clear he’s not above taking shots at his old way of life, at the very fabric of the place that cultivated and nurtured his unprecedented 20-years of football success.
Sure, our weather stinks. We all know this. But in the words of the great Chris Rock, “Rich people can’t talk about poor people. That’s just mean. Like, ‘Look at these broke bastards! Perhaps we should raise the prices so we don’t have to see these people again! Is that a Hyundai? With cloth interior?’ Yeah, man, you’ve got to watch what you say.”
Brady’s jab at our weather was more than just mean, it was a from-the-heart moment that revealed he’s glad to be gone, and that he doesn’t remember his time here very fondly. A week later, he hasn’t even bothered to craft a token apology for having his words taken out of context. No, Brady doesn’t care about us. Worse, he probably regrets us.
There is no other conclusion to draw from that unnecessary musket fired back at Patriots Nation. It was far more than a passing comment on the weather, it was a thumbing of the nose to any and all New England naysayers who have dared critique his departure without the undying and unconditional love and affection he feels he’s earned.
This comment came, by the way, during the same week TMZ reported on Brady’s purchase of a new multi-million dollar yacht ‘Viva a Vida,’ Page Six reported that he’s purchased a $17 million dollar “tear-down” on ‘Billionaire Bunker’ Island in Miami’s Biscayne Bay, and the Small Business Administration announced that Tom’s company TB12 had received $960,855 in a Paycheck Protection Program load from the federal government.
Boy, the pandemic has hit Brady hard.
Is this who Brady really is? A tone-deaf, bitter guy whose new life revolves around dining with new neighbors Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner while they giggle at avoiding state income tax? Stepping over the some 50% of small businesses lying in the street who applied for but were denied PPP assistance? A boastful buffoon who chews out his new teammates on the sideline week after week as they give the thousand-mile stare on the bench?
Call me crazy, I think the fans here wallowing in this Northeast - apparently unworthy for even Tom’s dead body - treated him pretty well over the years. If you consider worship and toe-licking good treatment, that is. Maybe Brady wanted more.
Yes, Brady is winning the 2020 football scoreboard vs. his old haunts, with Tompa Bay’s 8-5 and playoff-bound record dwarfing the Pats’ 6-7 season of purgatory. That - and the reality that if Brady had stayed in Foxboro the Patriots record would be at least two-wins better - make every spiteful move Brady makes in paradise sting all the more.
Brady could have stayed and completed the race, tougher though the final few miles may have been. It would have been a real-life Hollywood script, a near-perfect run from obscurity to the penthouse, capped off with an arm-in-arm walk into the sunset of Brady’s twilight years alongside Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick and just about every man, woman and child from Millenocket to Middletown.
Instead, it’s devolved into a bizarre divorce with Brady in pewter taking jabs from the tropics.
Words matter, especially so from those considered family. So please, watch what you say as you ‘Viva a Vida,’ Tom, from every Tom, Dick and Harry left here in the land of the miserable. Cheer up our blue Christmas and send us one of those new custom Brady license plates to remember you by. And every once in a while, maybe stop and think about those poor souls you’ve left behind and say something nice about your hard time spent back here in the graveyard.