Honestly seeing Tom in Tampa shows me he was always about his brand he’s not Troy Brown, Teddy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison, Willie McGinest, Deion Branch, Devin Mccourty, I think Tom used to be but incredible success and a international super star wife made him think it was the New England Tom’s.
He’s not the team first guy we always felt he was.
That’s my grudge I was lead to believe for years that Tom was all about the flying Elvis snd Belichick was the Yoda to his Luke.
This new Tom makes me sick and honestly I’m not a Brady fan I’m a Patriots fan.
I would love nothing more than Tampa Bay loses every game this season and the reason being a Brady back breaking INT on final drives.
Wowwowwow lol. I'm not quite where you are - you're looking at the old scripts and thinking, okay now he is the bad guy, he just seemed to be a good guy.
Apologies for this long tl;dr post coming next, just post around it, I know everybody hates these.
I'm just going, "Huh. Okay, I liked the script from The One When New England Won Everything, in fact, I was deeply invested, but it turned out to be just our local flavor of the NFL Show." So the truth is, none of us should ever have thought OUR guys were great heroes, weren't subject to human foibles like greed, etc. -- and I have NEVER seen a coach and QB be on the same page that much for more than a few years, n/m 20. That's part of the thing you're expressing... expecting them to represent virtues rather than be humans. "The Patriots Way."
I think they all bought in/buy in to that, but for fck's sake, when they're done with it, that's okay. I mean, that's part of what "it" is. TFB's interests were his interests, the team's were the team's. He's gone. He's not the most selfish whining Bay-itch known to man, he's not an effeminate pretty boy who can't play. He's the GOAT, last season he GOATED without NE, and that is good for both.
For Brady, if he finished with BB, it would always be like Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber when they worked together. Then one or both of them had big hits without the other, and you couldn't just think of them as Andrew Dice Webber, like I always called them. (Because I know that show tunes and NFL dynasties are natural metaphors for each other, given the similarity in fan bases...) So TFB is now TFB, the GOAT regardless of place and time, and one day
FAIRLY soon, his career will be legend and memory, and we'll remember him as the so-unquestionably-GOAT-guy-it's-not-even-funny. Think about it... PART of that will be the fact that he could do it elsewhere. Cold comfort, but our interests align a tiny bit.
But he still doesn't give a shlitz about you or me and never did. And truthfully we don't care about them. It's just everybody's role during the season... it's cathartic. We laugh, we cry, our hearts soar, sometimes they break (although those moments have been few and far between lately.) I mean, that's what we pay for.
TFB was the best show in town, now he's not, open season. Sweep the leg. Not really, don't dirty-hit him, it ain't that important. But until and unless he signs with us again, he's the other thing you can watch when the Pats aren't in contention. He's not the Patriots, though I have to admit, he's a slight rooting interest (I also root for Garopollo and rooted for Hoyer and Mallett and Brisket and everybody else who ever carried Tom's clipboard. Hell, if somebody hires Stidham sometime soon, I'll laugh first, then root for him to prove us wrong.)
I like how he left out such key first dynasty contributors who left on bad terms like Ty Law, Mike Vrabel, Ted Johnson, and Richard Seymour. I guess they didn’t bleed red silver and blue and wear flying Elvis pajamas so screw them.
The reality's just not nearly as fun as the drama, and go easy... the drama is what the League* pushes. "Storylines." You notice how often we hear about "storylines?" How about in our real lives, do we think there's a "storyline" about who's likely to get promoted, who gets their sales targets, who will and won't be cheated on? We pretend there is. We pretend we're good virtuous winners who did all the right things the right way until we get some bad outcomes, then we wisely proclaim that it's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how many times you get back up.
But if somebody other than you is telling you about your "storyline" do you think that person is likely to have your best interest at heart?
It is to laugh. Well, that's what NFL players would have to give us power to do to them, if they are to be the people we and "the media" try to make them.
Here's a bit of an interesting fact that hides in plain sight.
A lot of people like to talk about "the media." Generally they mean the channels/papers/etc. that tell stories that differ from the ones they like. "Don't believe that, that's just "the media" "narrative." "
THEIR favorite media, meanwhile, are not media. They are just telling the truth -- even on their all-opinion hours. Their narrative is not a narrative, it's just the obvious trail leading through the breadcrumbs.
Right, that said, what does
media mean, with this context understood?
It's the thing
mediating between you, the media consumer, and the facts as they are transpiring. Providers of narrative, sure, not just data. But everybody in the position of media is playing this role. They are a "middleman" of information. (Your favorite is in the same role. If you're a responsible media consumer, you agree with me on which media "do the best job." But the position, and the meaning, of "the media" doesn't change.)
But when drama breaks down, the position and function of "the media" almost disappears, because there's no narrative. Things are just working because competent people are doing their jobs.
If deep down we want the equivalent of WWE in many walks of life, we will increasingly get public figures whose proclamations and actions would fit WWE "storylines." If they really haven't got much "story" in them... chances are they don't think of their job as a face of entertainment, but of some other pursuit, for example, winning games.
Sports media is always on a hunt for storylines. If you get carried away, you can get into those, pro-Tom, anti-Tom, hate him, miss him, hate your own team, whatever.... "fan" is short for "fanatic." We're encouraged to play our own part in the metadrama, to be the groundlings hurling rotten vegetables at the actors
playing the villainous Richard III or whatever.... even though we know they're not these roles. At least we
should know.
/Core dump rant
