HULU LIED!!!!!!! The greatest run in the history of the NFL has officially come to an end. On St. Patrick’s Day 2020, Tom Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers bringing an end to the future Hall of Fame quarterback’s two decade run with the New England Patriots. The Brady era in New England spanned four US president administrations, social media advancements from MySpace to TikTok, and the start, end, and reboot of American Idol. During his time with the Patriots, the franchise won 17 AFC East championships, made 13 AFC championship games, made 9 Super Bowls, and won 6 Super Bowl titles.
Due to their incredible amount of success in the 21st century, the media microscope on the New England Patriots was massive throughout the entire run. Any time you turned your TV on during football season, you could count on a former player claiming the Patriots were done or some media talking head claiming they could go undefeated. One would think that with Brady gone to Tampa Bay the microscope will shrink and there won’t be as many Patriots discussions in the sports media world. However, that’s probably just wishful thinking.
With the Brady – Patriots break up now official, there’s going to be new debates/arguments pertaining to the greatest football dynasty of all time. How Brady performs in Tampa Bay and how the Patriots perform in a post Brady world will inspire plenty of takes. Even if Brady’s tenure in Tampa Bay matches Michael Jordan on the Wizards or Godfather 3 in terms of quality, there will still be Tom Brady conversations for the next couple of years. Just when you thought you were out they pull you back in!!!!! Be prepared to hear plenty of takes on Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft, the Patriots, and Boston sports from radio and TV sports talk show personalities for the next several years. Let’s try and predict some of the hottest takes we’ll be hearing in wake of this split.
“The Patriots made a mistake by trading away Jimmy Garoppolo.”’
Oh yes, get ready for this one. There are people who already believe this. These people seem to forget that the Patriots won a Super Bowl post Jimmy G trade. Calling Jimmy G a game manager during that 49ers run to the Super Bowl last season is disrespectful to Dilfer, Alex Smith, and game managers all over the world. The best part about this potential future take is we know exactly when it’s going to be brought up. Jimmy is going to have a four touchdown game against some mediocre team like Washington next season. Then on Monday there will be someone on TV who’s going to go on and on about how good Jimmy is and how the Patriots made an all time mistake by not moving on to him when they had the chance. I just hope when that happens other people are smart enough to look at the last two postseasons and see how they turned out. Unless the guy who once compared his life to Vince from Entourage is able to somehow win multiple Super Bowls after blowing it this year AND the Patriots struggle to find a long-term replacement for Brady (cause it certainly won’t be Stidham), then this take belongs in the trash can.
“Part of the reason why Tom Brady left was because he got sick of Julian Edelman.”
The last time Tom Brady played with a Pro Bowl wide receiver was with Wes Welker in 2012. He’s joining a team that already has two in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Although Brady hasn’t had a “star” receiver in some time, he’s still had Julian Edelman. After Welker left the Pats, Edelman became Brady’s most trusted target. Brady was able to win a Super Bowl (three to be exact) with Edelman unlike with Welker.
During their 11 seasons as teammates, Brady and Edelman developed a real bond off the field as well as on it. However, is it possible that Brady started to get sick of Julian Edelman? Remember last month when at a Syracuse game with Brady and Jimmy Fallon, Edelman looked at the camera and said, “He’s coming back.” referring to Brady to which Brady responded with an annoyed look on his face. After that, Edelman started selling merchandise that read “Stay! Tom 2020” on it which I don’t know why he thought was a good idea after Brady’s bothered look from the Syracuse game. On a side note, did anyone actually buy one of those “Stay! Tom 2020” shirts? Why would you buy that with a chance of him leaving and risk having a waste of shirt? If he stays, you still wouldn’t want to buy it because at that point he would already have committed to staying making the shirt pointless. I bet Billy McFarland could sell more tickets to the next concert he puts together than Edelman did with that apparel. The other piece of evidence you could possibly point to as Brady getting tired of Edelman was what happened on the field. Edelman dropped a key pass in the playoffs this year against Tennessee during the fourth quarter as the Pats were driving down to take the lead. Maybe Brady realized right then and there he couldn’t win with Edelman as his number one target anymore and needed an upgrade in receivers.
Now, do I believe any of that? Not at all. Can I see someone saying that when the topic of Edelman trade rumors come up and the Bucs are automatically linked as a potential team given Brady and Edelman’s history? Possibly yes. There’s no actual indication that there’s beef with Brady and Edelman, but I doubt that’ll stop someone in the world of hot take culture from creating a fake feud between the duo.
“Brady wanted to go to the Giants.”
I think this is my favorite take that I could see someone coming up with this fall if Brady and the Bucs struggle. It’ll be supported with no actual reporting, but the take itself will be great. Since the Patriots season ended, it’s been reported that Brady and his family are living in New York. Playing in Tampa lets him remain on the east coast to be close to his family if they remain in New York during the season, but if he was playing for the Giants, it would make it simple for the whole family to stay in New York if they wish to do that.
From a football perspective the Giants have the most talented running back in the league along with decent receivers in Golden Tate and Darius Slayton. The receiving core isn’t as good as Tampa’s, but one could argue with Saquon Barkley the skilled position players overall on the Giants are better than the ones on the Buccaneers. Brady to the Giants was never a story that had any traction likely because it appears as if the Giants are committed to Daniel Jones in his second year after an earth shattering 3-9 start to his career (great front office they got there). I can’t tell if having Joe Judge as the head coach would have been a positive for Brady since he would have some familiarity with a coach from the Patriots organization or a negative since as wide receiver coach for the Pats last season every single receiver not named Edelman underperformed so bad they may as well have packed Brady’s bags to Tampa for him.
The final part of this take that makes it a fun one to have is the idea of Brady and not Belichick being the one to go to the Giants to finish his career. This would be a huge power move by TB12. Belichick has always been linked to the Giants given he won two Super Bowls with the franchise as their defensive coordinator under his mentor Bill Parcells. There’s always been rumblings of the idea that Belichick could return to the Giants to finish his career with the same franchise where he achieved so much of his early success in the NFL. If Brady did that instead of him, it would add another dynamic into what is now the most compelling rivalry in football between the greatest quarterback and coach ever. Maybe there will be some story months from now on how Brady was trying to either play for the 49ers (his hometown team) or the Giants because of the reasons mentioned above. If there isn’t one, then maybe someone on Get Up! will try to speak it into existence without any sort of factual support.
“Peyton Manning is superior to Tom Brady.”
This will be my least favorite take that someone could possibly make. When Brady won his fifth Super Bowl against the Falcons the debate for greatest quarterback ever was shut. No QB had ever won that many rings. The argument was over at least that’s what a logical person would think. If Brady’s Bucs tenure ends up being a failure with no playoff appearances, I can easily envision someone bringing up how Peyton Manning was able to succeed in a different uniform unlike Brady as the main point of a Manning is better than Brady take. They’ll point to Peyton breaking the single season record for passing yards and touchdowns and winning a Super Bowl in Denver after playing majority of his career in Indianapolis as supporting evidence. They’ll probably try to tack on Peyton’s NFL record five regular season MVPs & his 3-2 playoff record against Brady as further back-up all while forgetting Brady has a 11-6 all time record against Manning along with six Super Bowl rings (again most by any player ever).
This take isn’t even exclusive to Peyton Manning. If Brady isn’t good with the Bucs there will be someone in the sports media world (probably Rob Parker) who will start to talk about how overrated Tom Brady is because at age 43 (not exactly the prime years of a quarterback’s career) he can’t match the success he had when he played in New England. Do you know how dumb that is? That’s the equivalent of eating at Long John Silver’s a day after having dinner at Nobu and saying food sucks. It’s very possible Brady’s time in Tampa turns out to be a disappointment, but that doesn’t alter or take anything away from what he’s already accomplished. Brady’s legacy as the best quarterback of all time was set in stone after Super Bowl 51. Even if he comes out next year not playing like the guy who successfully came back from 28-3 on the game’s biggest stage, this is what Peyton Manning was doing at age 43.
“Belichick/Brady was more important to the Patriots dynasty than Belichick/Brady.”
The “who matters more to the Patriots dynasty between Brady and Belichick” debate is on the Mount Rushmore of most tiring sports debates along with Jordan vs LeBron, should college athletes be paid, and does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of fame. I’ve had enough of it. As crazy as it sounds, there’s still somehow a pack of idiots who genuinely believe that Brady is just some 199th pick system QB who was only successful because he had the good fortune of playing for the greatest coach ever.
If you watch and follow the NFL, you probably know all the beats of this Brady-Belichick debate by now, but here are some of them:
- “Brady is a 199th draft pick who’s only successful cause of Belichick”
- “Belichick was a failure in Cleveland and didn’t succeed as a head coach until Brady”
- “Brady has subpar weapons and when Belichick provided him with some, records were broken”
- “Belichick went 11-5 with Matt Cassel and 3-1 with the Garopplo/Brisset combo
- “Belichick put together a master plan to succeed in the salary cap era year in year out”
- “Brady taking a discount for so long is the only reason why Belichick can succeed in the salary cap era”
I can go on and on, but I’m assuming you get the gist of it.
Now that the two of them are apart their respective success or failure is going to be used to judge who was the more important of the two. Belichick has more to lose here than Brady though. If Brady struggles in Tampa and never wins a seventh Super Bowl before he retires, it’ll easily be blamed as old age finally catching up with the legendary quarterback. He also can single handedly turn the debate in his favor by winning a Super Bowl at 43+. Even if Belichick wins another Super Bowl years from now, Brady’s greatness will likely still be looked at as the primary reason for the six Super Bowls while Belichick’s continued success will be attributed to his longevity as a coach. Phil Jackson won five rings after he coached Michael Jordan, yet there aren’t any arguments about who mattered more to the 90s Bulls teams. Brady has the upper hand in this one. Everything he does from here on out will only help him and not hurt him while Belichick needs a lot to happen for him to walk out the victor in this rivalry.