I have lived in Massachusetts for the majority of my life. I live about 30 minutes from Foxboro where the New England Patriots practice and play. I have been a fan of the Patriots since I can remember. I can say that I have been a fan, at one time, of Tom Brady. I believed he was a great quarterback despite his physical limitations, by which I mean he was not the fastest person on the field. In the last few years my opinion of him has changed.

Tom Brady is a fraud.

Earlier in his career when he was surrounded by his family I believe he was more genuine. He worked with whatever players were around him. He worked to make them better so the team would be better. He had receivers that he made or almost made into Pro Bowlers, one being Reche Caldwell in the 2006 season. He learned under Bill Belichick on how to not just play the game but to recognize situations, opposing defenses’ tendencies and how to exploit them with quick reads and decisions.

I started to sour on Brady during the 2014 season. It was the game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday Night Football. Brady was down on the field talking to Trent Dilfer (I can’t remember if Steve Young was there). Brady was animated in his conversation while Dilfer seemed to be just listening. During the pregame show, Dilfer then seemed to regurgitate everything that Brady had said to him. Essentially, Brady was not happy about what was going on at the time. The Patriots finished the season 12-4 so what Dilfer and Steve Young (Young had also chimed in on the conversation) had said was labeled as a bad take.

Dilfer and Young did not come to this take on their own. They got the info from Brady, and Brady denied he said anything to them. How could it be a coincidence that both Dilfer and Young had the same take?

I believe the change in Brady began with his marriage with Gisele Bündchen. Gisele is a supermodel who had built an empire. In my opinion she began to mold Brady into how he should be. He became more cognizant of his legacy on and off the field. He started TB12, promoting concussion water and special bags of mixed nuts. He also has a movie production company named 199 Productions, coming from the spot in which he was picked in the 2000 draft. He did a Facebook documentary “Tom vs Time” which was a behind the scenes look at how he has defied age, attributed to his TB12 program. He has tried to trademark monikers and phrases, even trying to steal Tom Terrific from Tom Seaver. My opinion this was all from Gisele.

In his recent interview with Jim Gray he placed himself in the as one of the greats, like Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky. That is something he wouldn’t have done in the past as recent as 2018.  In that interview he talked about people who influenced his life. In that list he briefly mentioned his former coach of 20 years Bill Belichick as if it hurt to say it. Why is that a big deal? In his ring ceremony speech Brady talked about “doing your job” and other phrases that come from? Bill Belichick. It is disingenuous.

I am not saying that Tom Brady is not a great quarterback. He is. The question one should ask is would he be a 7-time Super Bowl champion without Belichick? Probably not. Also, I don’t think Belichick would’ve won without Brady to be fair. Tom Brady owes more to Belichick than he is willing to admit and one could easily infer that he believes that he was the reason why they won.