Brady is back….back again

FL4WL3SS

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Jul 31, 2006
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Andy Brickley's potty mouth
I certainly had some "he's dead to me" posts spattered in there somewhere.

The only person I ever rooted for in another jersey was Ray Bourque. That was the first and last time. I'm mostly ambivalent when players leave my team, but the way Brady left felt like a giant middle finger and I wanted him to fail. I've softened a bit and would probably root for him to succeed on another team and see if he can go until he's 50. I dunno though, I'm a confused ex lover.
 

Ralphwiggum

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Jun 27, 2012
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I'm not a top-20 regular here, but I've read my share. And yes, agreed, there's a big difference between "he's gone, he's not on my team, so I don't care - he's just another player in the league", vs "Fuck him, I hope he loses every game". The former is a totally reasonable thing to feel, but the latter is grist for stereotyping and insulting the Pats' fanbase as spoiled and ungrateful, and I thought it was a chimera. I guess there are at least two here.

Per your insistence, I went back and looked through the last 15 pages of threads, and found only two polls that were even tangentially on the subject, both of them right around the time Brady left in March 2020.

The Sting 2020: asked the extent to which people here could root for the Bucs in 2020. Didn't really get at the question of "I don't care" vs "fuck him". Almost nobody in 70 posts expressed an active dislike; Oppo in post #30 said "I will be rooting for the Bucs to go 0-16 and the Pats to go 16-0", and then elaborated in #62, but that was it for the actively-rooting-against crowd.

And then The Decision 2020, a poll from Dec 2019 about how people would feel if Brady did leave. There weren't options for "will root against him", and the poll and discussion were mostly about a potential future for him on the Pats, rather than on how they'd feel if he left.

There was Gone Brady Gone, a lengthy non-poll reaction thread to the Brady departure decision. Those rooting for him to fail were this guy, @drbretto was initlally jilted (and elaborated / doubled down, and got a raft of shit for it, including from you) but may have come around to neutral, and... that's it, at least for the first 5 pages. Everyone else was in varying stages of shock, but those with composure wished him well.

So if there've been threads-upon-threads taking BBTL's temperature on Tom Brady since his departure, you're gonna have to link me to them, because I feel like I put in a good-faith effort here to hunt - and I found exactly 1 lurker who was rooting against him as of a month after his departure.
Fair enough, I guess maybe they weren't as plentiful as I remembered, or I remembered wrong, but I had thought there were more posters rooting against him (though again, far more were rooting for him, or were ambivalent).

Also as noted by others people's feelings can change over time.
 

djbayko

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Jul 18, 2005
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I'm not a top-20 regular here, but I've read my share. And yes, agreed, there's a big difference between "he's gone, he's not on my team, so I don't care - he's just another player in the league", vs "Fuck him, I hope he loses every game". The former is a totally reasonable thing to feel, but the latter is grist for stereotyping and insulting the Pats' fanbase as spoiled and ungrateful, and I thought it was a chimera. I guess there are at least two here.

Per your insistence, I went back and looked through the last 15 pages of threads, and found only two polls that were even tangentially on the subject, both of them right around the time Brady left in March 2020.

The Sting 2020: asked the extent to which people here could root for the Bucs in 2020. Didn't really get at the question of "I don't care" vs "fuck him". Almost nobody in 70 posts expressed an active dislike; Oppo in post #30 said "I will be rooting for the Bucs to go 0-16 and the Pats to go 16-0", and then elaborated in #62, but that was it for the actively-rooting-against crowd.

And then The Decision 2020, a poll from Dec 2019 about how people would feel if Brady did leave. There weren't options for "will root against him", and the poll and discussion were mostly about a potential future for him on the Pats, rather than on how they'd feel if he left.

There was Gone Brady Gone, a lengthy non-poll reaction thread to the Brady departure decision. Those rooting for him to fail were this guy, @drbretto was initlally jilted (and elaborated / doubled down, and got a raft of shit for it, including from you) but may have come around to neutral, and... that's it, at least for the first 5 pages. Everyone else was in varying stages of shock, but those with composure wished him well.

So if there've been threads-upon-threads taking BBTL's temperature on Tom Brady since his departure, you're gonna have to link me to them, because I feel like I put in a good-faith effort here to hunt - and I found exactly 1 lurker who was rooting against him as of a month after his departure.
Maybe they weren’t dedicated threads, but Ralph is correct that this discussion has occurred many times here. There is always a conflict between the Brady die hards and the anti-Bradys.
 

GeorgeCostanza

tiger king
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May 16, 2009
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You obviously haven't spent much time in BBTL since Brady left. There have been Brady threads and Brady polls more Brady threads and more Brady polls and we have people who fall into three basic categories: 1. Those who still root for Brady against any non-Patriots team (this is where I am), 2. those who are ambivalent about him and/or are pretty much ignoring him since he left, and 3. those who are rooting against him. If memory serves category 3 is the smallest group, but they have been here and haven't been hard to find since he left.
There’s a 4th category. Those who still root for Brady even against the patriots. There might not be many of us but we exist!
 

nattysez

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Sep 30, 2010
8,435
After the 2012 season, Ryan Theriot decided he was being underappreciated by baseball and decided to retire at 32 rather than try to hang in there as a backup infielder. Mike Krukow was on the local all-sports station and said that he'd told Theriot to think carefully about his decision, because "you're going to miss the game when your career is over, and you don't want to retire and then later wonder if you could've played a little longer, because by then it'll be too late." I remember that from over 10 years ago because it was the first time I'd heard a convincing take on why an athlete should hang on beyond his or her prime.

Brady thinks the same way as Krukow -- at this point, there'll be no coming back if he retires, so he needs to be really sure he's left it all out on the field before he hangs 'em up. People can grouse about "Willie Mays as a Met" all they want, but at least Willie knew for sure he was cooked when he finally retired.
 

8slim

has trust issues
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Nov 6, 2001
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After the 2012 season, Ryan Theriot decided he was being underappreciated by baseball and decided to retire at 32 rather than try to hang in there as a backup infielder. Mike Krukow was on the local all-sports station and said that he'd told Theriot to think carefully about his decision, because "you're going to miss the game when your career is over, and you don't want to retire and then later wonder if you could've played a little longer, because by then it'll be too late." I remember that from over 10 years ago because it was the first time I'd heard a convincing take on why an athlete should hang on beyond his or her prime.

Brady thinks the same way as Krukow -- at this point, there'll be no coming back if he retires, so he needs to be really sure he's left it all out on the field before he hangs 'em up. People can grouse about "Willie Mays as a Met" all they want, but at least Willie knew for sure he was cooked when he finally retired.
I never hold it against a player who wants to play. Like your story suggests, you can't go back again years later (boxers aside) so it's better to make sure you don't have regrets about retiring prematurely.

The only thing I hate is when guys turn it into a narcissistic "will he/won't he" drama. See: Favre, Brett.
 

54thMA

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Aug 15, 2012
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FWIW, I feel the exact same way as @FL4WL3SS . Have been rooting against him since he left.
Yup, me too, I'm in the same camp as you and @FL4WL3SS ........................he left here, that's fine, but the rub for me is the way he left, so he's dead to me.

Anyone who rooted for him once he left, have at it, but to also root for him when he played against the Patriots; what's a whole other level of WTF, definitely not a true Patriots fan, so whatever.

One of the group of people we get together with to watch football is in that camp; ran out and bought a Tampa Brady jersey, is a huge Brady first fan, then Tampa, I'd venture to guess other than Brady, he can't name four other Bucs, just a total Brady honk.

I'm assuming wherever he lands, he'll be a fan of that "team" as well.

That's just all sorts of awesome.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,282
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I'm not a top-20 regular here, but I've read my share. And yes, agreed, there's a big difference between "he's gone, he's not on my team, so I don't care - he's just another player in the league", vs "Fuck him, I hope he loses every game". The former is a totally reasonable thing to feel, but the latter is grist for stereotyping and insulting the Pats' fanbase as spoiled and ungrateful, and I thought it was a chimera. I guess there are at least two here.

Per your insistence, I went back and looked through the last 15 pages of threads, and found only two polls that were even tangentially on the subject, both of them right around the time Brady left in March 2020.

The Sting 2020: asked the extent to which people here could root for the Bucs in 2020. Didn't really get at the question of "I don't care" vs "fuck him". Almost nobody in 70 posts expressed an active dislike; Oppo in post #30 said "I will be rooting for the Bucs to go 0-16 and the Pats to go 16-0", and then elaborated in #62, but that was it for the actively-rooting-against crowd.

And then The Decision 2020, a poll from Dec 2019 about how people would feel if Brady did leave. There weren't options for "will root against him", and the poll and discussion were mostly about a potential future for him on the Pats, rather than on how they'd feel if he left.

There was Gone Brady Gone, a lengthy non-poll reaction thread to the Brady departure decision. Those rooting for him to fail were this guy, @drbretto was initlally jilted (and elaborated / doubled down, and got a raft of shit for it, including from you) but may have come around to neutral, and... that's it, at least for the first 5 pages. Everyone else was in varying stages of shock, but those with composure wished him well.

So if there've been threads-upon-threads taking BBTL's temperature on Tom Brady since his departure, you're gonna have to link me to them, because I feel like I put in a good-faith effort here to hunt - and I found exactly 1 lurker who was rooting against him as of a month after his departure.
I'm kind of a fuck Tom Brady guy. Not quite like @FL4WL3SS but definitely not neutral.

I was sort of wondering what I posted as my reaction at the time. I don't know how to link stuff from the Gone Brady Gone thread, because it's closed, but it's quoted in italics below. Reading what I said back then was a blast from the past. I think in re-reading it, I was a little surprised that some posters who were flirting with criticism were getting beaten up a bit, so I think I censored myself. In other words, I felt like I had to say that I love Tom Brady for what he had done for the team. But even so, I would say I was closer to rooting for him to fail than wishing him well. When I said "I don't care if he does well," I didn't actually mean it. I didn't want to get yelled at. I was actually surprised at how many people seemed to be rooting for him. I still root for him to fail, unless he can help the Patriots by succeeding.

I sort of think will you root for TB could be its own thread because it is fascinating. I think the answer might be different depending on how long a person followed the team before Brady.

I love Tom Brady. And I will love him when he comes back for a heroes welcome after he retires. But right now fuck him. I don’t care if he does well unless he can help the Patriots and I hope he goes zero for a million if he is in position to hurt the Patriots. For the next two years he is just another guy and I hope that officials don’t stop calling that intentional grounding thing when he is on another team.

I know that he is going to be good. Because he is Tom Brady. But he is Drew Brees to me now.
 

Ferm Sheller

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Mar 5, 2007
20,404
I can't imagine having watched Brady play for the Pats for almost 20 years, taking them to 9 SBs, winning 6 of them. All those years of nothing but winning. No mediocre seasons much less bad seasons. Always winning the division and making the playoffs (except the year he got hurt and Cassell took over). Just nothing but high-level football from the beginning of September through mid-January at the earliest, and half of the time, into February. Twenty seasons of happy water-cooler conversations at work, twenty seasons of always being excited for game day, twenty seasons of Sundays ending happily like 75% of time. Can't imaging all of that and having ill-will toward Brady because he left NE for reasons that are very likely complex (as in there's no single reason), and are certainly not fully clear to us. And then are you going to love him again when he's retired and giving his HoF speech in a Pats hat? No? Nonsense. You know you will.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
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Sep 9, 2008
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I can't imagine having watched Brady play for the Pats for almost 20 years, taking them to 9 SBs, winning 6 of them. All those years of nothing but winning. No mediocre seasons much less bad seasons. Always winning the division and making the playoffs (except the year he got hurt and Cassell took over). Just nothing but high-level football from the beginning of September through mid-January at the earliest, and half of the time, into February. Twenty seasons of happy water-cooler conversations at work, twenty seasons of always being excited for game day, twenty seasons of Sundays ending happily like 75% of time. Can't imaging all of that and having ill-will toward Brady because he left NE for reasons that are very likely complex (as in there's no single reason), and are certainly not fully clear to us. And then are you going to love him again when he's retired and giving his HoF speech in a Pats hat? No? Nonsense. You know you will.
I'm not mad at him for leaving. I just like my favorite team and hate everyone else. I don't root for other players. I mean, maybe a little if it won't really impact my team -- like Ohtani is a nice story.

Actually, fuck Ohtani.

I think Adrian Beltre is the only player that for some reason I continued to root for. I liked Joe Sakic. I don't know why. Warrick Dunn, and he never even was a Patriot. I think that's the list.

When Brady retires, he becomes ours again. There won't be any ambiguity. And so I'll love him. Because I root for the laundry, and Patriots will be his laundry when he retires.
 

Ferm Sheller

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Mar 5, 2007
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I'm not mad at him for leaving. I just like my favorite team and hate everyone else. I don't root for other players. I mean, maybe a little if it won't really impact my team -- like Ohtani is a nice story.

Actually, fuck Ohtani.

I think Adrian Beltre is the only player that for some reason I continued to root for. I liked Joe Sakic. I don't know why. Warrick Dunn, and he never even was a Patriot. I think that's the list.

When Brady retires, he becomes ours again. There won't be any ambiguity. And so I'll love him. Because I root for the laundry, and Patriots will be his laundry when he retires.
My message wasn't aimed at you and I think your feelings are more or less similar to mine: Pats come first and I'm largely indifferent toward how Brady's Bucs have fared. I'd like to see him win (since it's not at the expense of the Pats), but I don't really care. I've just heard a lot of people say (maybe on SoSH, but more so among my friends/colleagues) that they hate Brady and love to see him lose. I don't get it at all.
 

FL4WL3SS

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Jul 31, 2006
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I can't imagine having watched Brady play for the Pats for almost 20 years, taking them to 9 SBs, winning 6 of them. All those years of nothing but winning. No mediocre seasons much less bad seasons. Always winning the division and making the playoffs (except the year he got hurt and Cassell took over). Just nothing but high-level football from the beginning of September through mid-January at the earliest, and half of the time, into February. Twenty seasons of happy water-cooler conversations at work, twenty seasons of always being excited for game day, twenty seasons of Sundays ending happily like 75% of time. Can't imaging all of that and having ill-will toward Brady because he left NE for reasons that are very likely complex (as in there's no single reason), and are certainly not fully clear to us. And then are you going to love him again when he's retired and giving his HoF speech in a Pats hat? No? Nonsense. You know you will.
As I said, as soon as he retires, I'm back in his corner.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
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Sep 9, 2008
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My message wasn't aimed at you and I think your feelings are more or less similar to mine: Pats come first and I'm largely indifferent toward how Brady's Bucs have fared. I'd like to see him win (since it's not at the expense of the Pats), but I don't really care. I've just heard a lot of people say (maybe on SoSH, but more so among my friends/colleagues) that they hate Brady and love to see him lose. I don't get it at all.
Maybe some of it is that it reflects very indirectly on Belichick and the other players who have been on NE? I think Brady winning with Tampa Bay added some fuel to the Belichick isn't all that crowd -- call them the Yammers. Belichick still is a Patriot and so maybe that's part of it -- like Brady failing somehow makes Belichick's star shine more? I dunno, something like that.

But I am more than just ambivalent about Brady. In a weird sense. Like if you say to me "Troy Brown" or "Julian Edelman," I get a very warm fuzzy feeling. Obviously, they are not in his class. But, there's a bit there that I won't feel about Brady even when he retires. Just a little. Matthew Slater.
 

Ferm Sheller

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Maybe some of it is that it reflects very indirectly on Belichick and the other players who have been on NE? I think Brady winning with Tampa Bay added some fuel to the Belichick isn't all that crowd -- call them the Yammers. Belichick still is a Patriot and so maybe that's part of it -- like Brady failing somehow makes Belichick's star shine more? I dunno, something like that.
Well, that would explain hoping to see him fail, but it doesn't explain actually hating him (to the point that I think some people would love see him blow out his knee again or something). I think when he's retired, all Pats fans are going to have nothing but good feelings about him again. He was the king of New England for two decades.
 

cornwalls@6

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Apr 23, 2010
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Well, that would explain hoping to see him fail, but it doesn't explain actually hating him (to the point that I think some people would love see him blow out his knee again or something). I think when he's retired, all Pats fans are going to have nothing but good feelings about him again. He was the king of New England for two decades.
C'mon man, has anyone here expressed anything close to that?
 

Ferm Sheller

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C'mon man, has anyone here expressed anything close to that?
Not on SoSH that I can recall. As I mentioned in my other message, I know people outside of SoSH who seem to really hate the guy now, who love it when he fails, who I really think would love it if he suffered a career-ending injury.
 

lexrageorge

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Jul 31, 2007
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Every season I usually have a second team that I follow somewhat loosely when the playoffs start. This season it was the Bengals. When Brady left for Tampa, I did sort of adopt the Bucs as my second team, and was cheering for them during Brady's first 2 playoff runs there. Definitely was rooting for Brady and the Bucs when they took down the Chiefs, although I thought the strong play of the Bucs defense got overlooked by the narrative. But never considered rooting for Brady in the game last season in Foxboro; was pulling for Mac and the Pats all the way.

I can understand ambivalence, or even those that root against him at this point. This past season I was totally ambivalent towards Brady. The retirement/un-retirement drama and the whispers about Miami rubbed me the wrong way, and so it's just not as much fun following his career at this point. Still don't think he should ever have to buy a drink in New England or pay admission to enter Gillette Stadium. And I will never understand those (not anyone here) that will plan to boo Brady during his induction to the Patriots Hall of Fame.
 

Bunt4aTriple

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I am all in on a Brady return. He's a meat head, but he's mostly harmless. If sitting through his Rodan+Fields pitch is the cost of doing business, then I'll gladly pay it. There's no evidence of him being a crook. His side hustle is mostly, "eat super clean, workout like a maniac, and have some magic elixer." Yeah, the concussion water and immunity boost are dumb, but I don't know how many people are listening.

I thought his exit was mostly gracious, or at least it could have been a lot worse. At least publicly, he didn't burn any bridges.
 

Marciano490

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Nov 4, 2007
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After the 2012 season, Ryan Theriot decided he was being underappreciated by baseball and decided to retire at 32 rather than try to hang in there as a backup infielder. Mike Krukow was on the local all-sports station and said that he'd told Theriot to think carefully about his decision, because "you're going to miss the game when your career is over, and you don't want to retire and then later wonder if you could've played a little longer, because by then it'll be too late." I remember that from over 10 years ago because it was the first time I'd heard a convincing take on why an athlete should hang on beyond his or her prime.

Brady thinks the same way as Krukow -- at this point, there'll be no coming back if he retires, so he needs to be really sure he's left it all out on the field before he hangs 'em up. People can grouse about "Willie Mays as a Met" all they want, but at least Willie knew for sure he was cooked when he finally retired.
This is a great point. It’s odd how fans look at their memories of players as some sort of public trust to the point they can opine that a player should retire when that’s entirely the prerogative of the player and the teams in the league. To the extent it’s different in context sports, that probably says more about our unease with the level of violence.
 

Spelunker

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Jul 17, 2005
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I am all in on a Brady return. He's a meat head, but he's mostly harmless. If sitting through his Rodan+Fields pitch is the cost of doing business, then I'll gladly pay it. There's no evidence of him being a crook. His side hustle is mostly, "eat super clean, workout like a maniac, and have some magic elixer." Yeah, the concussion water and immunity boost are dumb, but I don't know how many people are listening.

I thought his exit was mostly gracious, or at least it could have been a lot worse. At least publicly, he didn't burn any bridges.
This is amazing, and the best way of putting it. At this point it's akin to asking myself if it's worth it to sit through a three hour timeshare pitch to get one free night at the resort and a few glasses of cheap wine.

At this point in my life, it's not. Mileage may vary.
 

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
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Brady thinks the same way as Krukow -- at this point, there'll be no coming back if he retires, so he needs to be really sure he's left it all out on the field before he hangs 'em up. People can grouse about "Willie Mays as a Met" all they want, but at least Willie knew for sure he was cooked when he finally retired.
And it was only one season too many. At 42 he had an OPS+ of 81 (and the forgettable WS game that created the image of "Mays as a Met"), but at age 41 in 1972, in 250PAs with the Mets it was 145.