It's been 18 months since Tom Brady decided to leave New England and sign with Tampa Bay.
The quarterback will return to Gillette Stadium Sunday night when his Bucs take on the Patriots and the 44-year-old spoke about it on the SiriusXM podcast, “Let’s Go! with Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald and Jim Gray.”
Brady isn't expecting to be cheered.
“Well, I wouldn’t expect a homecoming," he said when asked for his message to the fans. "I think they’re there to root for their team and their team is the Patriots. And I’ll certainly have a lot of people that cheered for me over the years, I know there’ll probably be, I’ll have a lot of family there and I have a lot of friends that have wanted to go to the game. … The home crowd at Gillette is a great crowd. And I think they're going to cheer for their team as I would expect them to. And I think if they know anything about me, they're going to know that I'm going out there to try to win the football game. So I think they'll respect that about me. I certainly respect that they're there to pull for their team and that's the way sports goes.”
The quarterback said he's going to do his best to treat it like a normal week, despite returning to the place where he has 20 years of fond memories.
“Yeah, that's the reality of pro sports, you know, and I think again, I think having the opportunity as a free agent 18 months ago, and, you know, choosing Tampa and then seeing that we were gonna play the AFC East, I knew it would be inevitable," Brady said. "And, you know, here we are kind of, as we approach this week, you know, it'll be obviously a fun week. There's a lot of buildup, a lot of hype, and I know it's kind of been going on for quite a while. I'm excited to go play a football game and a regular season football game and try to get back on a winning track. And I know it's against the team that I played 20 years for, and I know it's against a very quality team and a great organization and a great franchise, but I'm going to do everything I can to keep it like I normally do. I mean, I feel like I put a hundred percent into every week, so it's not like I can say, well, this week I'm going to put 110% in because I try to put a hundred percent in every week to the opponent.
"You know, I have a lot of obviously tremendous memories. I have some of the greatest experiences of my life took place in the last 20 years, personally and professionally. You know, going back to a place that I know so well with so many friends will be a really exciting thing for everybody. And I think as the ball gets kicked off, I know it's going to be kind of a normal football game and I'm going to have to go do what I've always tried to do, is be a great quarterback for the team that I'm playing on. And I'd love to go up there and get a win against a really great football team.”
Kickoff is set for 8:20 p.m. Sunday night.