The Comeback King: a Patriot Fan's Goodbye to the Greatest of All Time
By: Schwartz
I wasn’t really a football fan yet, not at all. In fact, I can’t remember having actually watched an entire game before that day. But on February 6, 2005, my parents and I went across the street for my neighbors’ Super Bowl party. I didn’t know much about the two teams, just that one was from right near Boston, where I had spent my earliest years, and the other was from Philadelphia, which is….Philadelphia. I decided that I’d root for the Patriots that day, and for every day after, a decision that changed my sports fandom forever.
Being a Pats fan from exactly 2005 through 2014 was strange. My team was great, historic even, but never a champion. I was labelled a frontrunner, as is every fan of a dynastic team, but had only personally watched one game of my team’s magical run. And of course, no franchise in sports had their name mercilessly dragged through the mud more than the post-spygate (and deflategate) Patriots of that wild period.
But through all of those years, there was little I loved more than watching Tom Brady play football. It was more than his statistical production, his intensity, or even the iconic moments of his decorated career that made Tom so special to root for. It’s the fact that in all of the years I’ve watched Patriots football, I’ve only truly felt that the game was out of reach less than a dozen times. Any time 12 was on the field, the Patriots had a chance.
One of the few times I felt that the day was lost was in 2013 - the visiting Browns had the Pats on the ropes, leading by 12 points inside the two minute warning. To make matters worse, our top offensive weapon, Gronk, was injured and had to miss the end of the game. Still, of course, with some help from brilliant special teams play, Tom was able to toss two touchdowns within a minute of play, and create a win out of absolutely nothing, pulling off an absolute miracle.
The incredible thing about Tom Brady’s tenure in New England, however, is not that he was able to pull off a comeback like that. It’s that the next day, people were hardly talking about it as much more than a win we felt lucky to have, and that the team had work to do. Tom Brady pulled off miracles with such reliability that they felt commonplace to the Patriots faithful, to the point where we truly expected them when the team was in a hole.
There was no situation too dire, no game where Tom’s fiery competitiveness and his urge to prove himself couldn’t lead the Patriots to victory, culminating of course in the greatest comeback in football history, the 28-3 game, Super Bowl 51. While this game was just one of 5 championship victories in which Tom had to lead the Pats to a win after being tied or trailing in the fourth quarter, it was, as Mr. Kraft stated, unequivocally the sweetest. The emotional swing for all of us watching was spectacular. I reached the lowest levels of despair I ever had during my New England fandom, but never gave up hope. We had Tom Fawkin’ Brady; this game isn’t over until the final whistle.
That game came after a period during which Tom had been knocked down more than ever. Quite literally, in fact, during the previous season’s final game, an AFC title game where Tom led a furious comeback behind a shaky offensive line but was ultimately came up just short as he was battered by a historic Broncos front 7. And of course, off of the football field, as the absolute sham and farce that was deflategate overshadowed the Patriots’ stunning victory over the nearly-dynastic Seahawks in Super Bowl 49, perhaps the best NFL game ever played. Even the 2016 season itself started with a four-game suspension, but there was nothing on or off of the gridiron that could break Tom Brady’s will, as he played, in my opinion, the very best football of his legendary career en route to an unprecedented 5th Super Bowl title, in the only fashion appropriate for the NFL’s comeback king.
And that’s what Tom Brady’s career has been, hasn’t it? Just a long, endless string of comebacks. After being the star QB at Serra High in the Bay Area, Tom had to fight his way up from 7th on the Michigan depth chart just to earn playing time. Then, after eventually proving himself in our shared college home of Ann Arbor, he was famously picked just 199th in the draft, and came into the NFL as a lanky 6th rounder with a hell of a lot to prove, and no remote guarantee of a starting job.
Once he hit the league by storm, winning three Super Bowls in his first four seasons as a starter, he endured a 10-year stretch where pundits slung a litany of detractions his way, from system player to cheater, and the Pats suffered the two most crushing defeats I’ve personally experienced as a sports fan, in Super Bowls 42 and 46 at the hands of the Giants. On top of that, after one of those defeats, he went through a horrific injury that could have ended many players’ careers. No matter what, though, there was nothing Brady couldn’t come back from even better than he had been before, constantly improving even as his supporting casts became worse and he grew older.
Brady's last MVP season, 2017 - which was his AGE 40 season - was punctuated by a Super Bowl where he threw for over 500 yards and 3 touchdowns, but not a single interception, despite the team going from three to two active wide receivers after yet another injury to a teammate in the first quarter.
Now Tom has one last comeback to make - his response to the franchise that drafted him deciding that he wasn’t worthy of being part of their future plans, and not even extending him an offer during his first-ever free agency. As a Patriots fan, I’m devastated to see him go, although forever grateful for everything he’s done for the team and city, turning a sad, bottom-feeder franchise into (a tie for) the winningest in football history. He changed the culture in New England, instilling the Patriot Way within everyone in Foxborough and beyond as he helped turn Boston into this century’s city of champions.
I’ll always be proud of the way Brady represented everything Boston stands for, and always led by example as our quarterback and as a member of the community. Most of all, I’m thankful I spent my childhood watching a hero who spent every day showing us that hard work and hard work only can take you to the greatest heights and that there is never, ever a time to give up. This year will be the first fresh start in a long time for Tom, and I hope he finds success in Tampa, his final comeback, and also finds a few more records to break.
He might not wear the same jersey next season, but it’s just as clear to me today as it was when he put his hands on his head in disbelief after winning his first Super Bowl two decades ago, and as it was throughout ten years of struggles between dynasties. As it was as he thrust the Lombardi trophy into the air and hollered a defiant “Let’s Go!” after pulling off the most improbable comeback in football history, and as it was after he and his best friend Julian Edelman - who grew up idolizing Tom just like the rest of us - gleefully tore through Disney Land after bringing the Patriots their sixth championship. And it’s just as clear as it was when I tearfully read his farewell to Pats nation just a few days ago - Tom Brady, the greatest of all time, and a legend who made greatness not a goal but an expectation, is, always has been, and will always be - Forever a Patriot.
