When the Super Bowl ends there’s an almost immediate melancholy that sets in for the die-hard football fan. It’s a seven month withdrawal that’s mitigated by things like free agency, the NFL Draft, training camp and preseason, aka “the hard seltzer of real football”. These events abate that longing for your favorite sport until kickoff in September. Sure, the weather improves, and there’s basketball and hockey and baseball to get your sports fix. But if you love pro football most there’s just no replacement for it.
Perhaps an overlooked effect of the Patriots success over the previous twenty years is they almost entirely prevented that melancholy from ever setting in. That double-dynastic run was marked by feelings of perpetual relevance, if not superiority, to other teams and fanbases. When the Pats didn’t win it all there was constant hype and agitated anxiety to get the next season underway immediately, knowing the handsome and ageless posterboy for our football joy, our hero Tom Brady, was working nonstop to get back to the top of the mountain and bring us vicariously with him. During the six Patriots Super Bowl championship offseasons there was no low, just an endless after-party, marked by the nonstop consumption of highlights, NFL Films retrospectives, parades, parties, discussions of the Pats repeating and so much more. It was a glorious 24/7/365 sports buzz, one of the many many reasons why we adore Brady so much.
OK, so Brady just won another Super Bowl. I should be over the moon, sleepless with joy over my favorite player’s unreal accomplishment, right? Yet that dreaded offseason melancholy is here. In fact it might be worse than usual. If Brady’s accomplishment in “Champa Bay” left you feeling this way take heart, you’re not the only one. You love Brady, but you’re a loyal Pats fan. His remarkable achievement came in another uniform, and it just doesn’t feel right. In fact it might even make you a little sad.
I was fortunate to attend Super Bowl 55 in-person (thank you again, ZUDY). The excitement and privilege of being one of the lucky few to witness football’s biggest stage, and more history for Brady, stemmed the awkwardness I had been feeling for a while. The stadium and surrounding area was abuzz with fans. There were a few tailgates. Everyone was wearing 12 jerseys, albeit in the wrong colors to me. Confession: in retrospect I think this as the happiest I got Super Bowl 55 Sunday.
For a moment I felt like I was back home! That familiar cheer that was out two decade rallying cry! But I wasn’t in Foxboro. And everyone was here to watch Tom Brady try and win a Super Bowl for another team, in a different stadium. Glad to go along for the ride, hoping to get that Brady championship juice, I plugged into that familiar energy and it felt good for a bit.
Once inside Raymond James Stadium I was riding the wave, psyched to see what should be an epic clash. With the game about to kick off my buddy Luke texted me, “I honestly felt a little sad watching him take the field for the Bucs.” My reply, “Ditto.” Damn! The feelings I’ve been managing all season, trying to compartmentalize, are still there. I’d previously admitted to having a hard time seeing Brady in another uniform, and openly confessed on this site to being jealous of Bucs fans, because there’s no joy in sports fandom I’d known like rooting for Brady. He brought out the best in us, though same might say the worst, too. But for me it’s rooting for Brady in a Patriots uniform that was the pinnacle of football ecstasy. Even seeing him throw Super Bowl touchdowns with Gronk, once the apex of in-game celebration, felt weird. And their postgame tuddy fun that should have me grinning ear to ear? Nope.
You’re probably saying, “Good lord, Nick/Fitzy! Grow up! Get over yourself! Life moves on, and so did Brady! Just be happy for him given all the joy he brought you for twenty years.” I am, and I’d never ask for sympathy, not after the success we just experienced. But if I can’t be honest about how I feel then what’s the point? And if you think I’m the only who has made his way by professing nonstop adoration for TB12 who feels melancholy then guess again.
I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Portnoy, or anyone, about a sports matter, more.
“That’s my guy. That’s our guy, Brady.” Yup. Dave nailed it. We believed the devotion reciprocal, but we’re fans, and he’s Tom Brady. And his run in Tompa Bay isn’t his Michael Jordan on the Wizards or Bobby Orr on the Blackhawks phase. No, Brady in Year One in Tampa won it all. He’s responsible for fifty percent of the city’s Super Bowls and is looked upon as more than just a rental but now a massive part of the city’s sports history. He’s a legend there and has legitimate local legacy, possibly with more to come. Which is incredible. And also gross. No, not his accomplishment. Tom Brady the player, the human franchise, is nothing short of remarkable. He is uniquely untouchable in terms of achievement and excellence. It’s the emotional selfishness of fans like me, who never wanted to see him leave and especially don’t want to share him with anyone else, that make this tough to swallow.
Brady will always feel like family, hence why everyone calls his departure and the professional dissolution of the Brady-Belichick partnership a divorce. As a child of a broken marriage I can relate. You’re forever happy for family, even while with another family (the Bucs), but also seeing them successful out of your house leaves you an emotional pretzel. After the confetti fell and Brady raised his seventh Lombardi I was on my way out, flush with the happy and sad of Tom’s triumph for another franchise, when I heard someone call out, “Hey, Fitzy!” It was one of Brady’s sisters, who I’d had the pleasure of meeting before. They were overjoyed as we spoke briefly about the surreality of Tom’s accomplishment. She told me I was welcome in the Bucs Brady Club, an offer I appreciated very much. I deferred and congratulated them, offering that there’d be many a sleepless night before Tom returns to Foxboro this fall. We wished each other well, went our separate ways, and once far enough away I might’ve let out the biggest sigh ever.
When I saw the team tweet their congratulations to Tom. Sunday night the feels were almost too much. I envy Pats fans who can partition their emotions and root equally for Brady and the Patriots. Not me. It’s just not the same. And maybe it never will be. There’s a fear that when the Patriots return to winning ways, and they will with Bill, that will feel different, too. Probably should since it won’t be Brady leading the team. When they put out a hype teaser to get us excited for the impending campaign I got fired up for football in the fall and the most important offseason this century. But moments later that offseason melancholy, something I’d not felt in forever, settled back in...intensified ironically by of all things a Tom Brady Super Bowl win.