ST. LOUIS — Dear fellow members of the Tom Brady Detractors Club,
I’m writing to encourage you to be strong. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t be fooled by propaganda. Don’t give in.
As Super Bowl LV approaches, remember all of the reasons we root against Brady, all the time, no matter what.
Six Super Bowl rings. Multiple on-field scandals. Perfect hair. And now a seventh chance at a championship in his first season with Tampa Bay.
Frankly, Brady is a bully. The 43-year-old Florida man keeps finding ways to antagonize those who pull against him. Why must he be so hard on the card-carrying members of our organization?
It wasn’t enough that we begrudgingly accepted the fact that Brady is probably the best quarterback of all time. Now we have to hear hot takes from the talking heads about how he should be in the conversation for greatest American athlete ever. Michael Jordan, Simone Biles, Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky, Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali, Michael Phelps and more would like a word. If Brady is in the room of athletes under consideration for all-time greats, the room is as large as Bill Belichick’s hidden lair of unethically acquired opponent information.
Here’s an alternative topic that might be worthy of some discussion during the long buildup to the Super Bowl. Interceptions. Brady threw three in Tampa’s NFC Championship win against the Packers. He threw two picks in Tampa Bay’s regular-season loss to the Chiefs. The Chiefs have lost just one game in which they’ve picked off a pass this season, and none of the four in which they have picked off two or more. Don’t expect to hear much about that, or Brady’s passer rating of 73.8 during the defeat of Green Bay, as the Super Bowl story lines present themselves.
Instead, the hype is already revolving around Brady’s legacy. The networks are hyperventilating over Brady’s 10th Super Bowl appearance. Why?
When measuring baseball greatness, do we count the number of times a player appeared in a World Series, or the number of times he won it? When I say Yadier Molina should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, I don’t mention that he played in four World Series championships with the Cardinals. I point out that he’s a two-time champion. As if Brady’s six Super Bowl rings were not enough, we have to keep hearing about his 10th trip to the Super Bowl. Does anyone else get this much credit for championships lost? LeBron James, who is 4 for 10 in the NBA Finals, would love to get some of that energy. Michael Jordan, for the record, went 6 for 6 when a ring was up for grabs. Bill Russell went went 11 for 12. Just saying.
Don’t expect to hear much, if anything, about the scandals during all of the legacy talk. It’s as if they never happened. We will never know what information would have been found on that cell phone Brady destroyed before NFL investigators examined it during the Deflategate drama. We will never know what would have been discovered in those tapes and notes NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had destroyed during the Spygate drama. We will never know how Super Bowl XXXVI might have gone differently if Patriots videographers had not, according to former Patriots videographer Matt Walsh, observed the St. Louis Rams’ pre-Super Bowl walk-through and then reported back to the coaching staff what it saw — things like Rams running back Marshall Faulk preparing to return kicks, and the installation of new red-zone plays.
Those old wounds in St. Louis still sting as Brady reenters the Super Bowl spotlight, this time with a brand new team. So much for the Belichick/Brady divorce crippling the two. The Patriots fell apart. Not Brady. He’s pulling a Benjamin Button. His new tan makes the cast of “Jersey Shore” jealous. His hair is somehow more prefect. I swear his teeth have gotten whiter. It’s just not right. Inexplicably, insufferable Patriots fans who should feel terrible for losing Brady, people like Post-Dispatch photographer David Carson, are now finding joy in cheering for Brady the Buccaneer. It really is horrendous behavior.
Look, I know it’s petty to not like Brady because he’s the only guy out there who can get away with wearing UGG boots, which look insanely comfortable, but that’s not even the worst thing about him anymore. It’s not the scandals, either. The worst thing about Brady, right now, is that he appears to be inching toward likeability.
Brady seems to be having fun, a lot more fun than he seemed to have in New England. He’s the underdog now, and he relishes it. Did you see what happened the other weekend? Brady came out after the game and played catch with Saints quarterback Drew Brees’ kids. The adorable moment went viral. I caught myself thinking, how sweet. It was awful.
Members of the Tom Brady Detractors Club have rarely faced so much adversity. We must dig deep and press forward. The greatest quarterback of all time really is the worst.
Go Chiefs.
Frederickson writes for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch