Turk
Young, Gifted, and Black
I’m not here to light the fire. I’m just here to acknowledge the pyre has been built.
Today, on the three-year anniversary of the Patriots drafting Jimmy Garoppolo, the Jimmy over Tommy possibility remains real.
More probable than not? Not quite. But with the draft passing and Garoppolo remaining in New England, the Tom Brady Doomsday Clock inched closer to midnight.
The decision the greatest coach in NFL history will eventually make about the greatest quarterback in NFL history will alter their legacies and color the perception of all they built in a nearly two-decade collaboration with the Patriots.
If Brady hadn’t won five Super Bowls, galvanized a fanbase in defiance of the NFL that persecuted him, helped make a few billion for the Family Kraft and given the region something to do with itself in the fall and winter for the past 18 years, he’d probably already be gone.
Because the other side of why Brady’s been able to pilot the Patriots to greatness is that Belichick set the flight plan. And that plan includes an unflinching, unapologetic, simplistic mantra that he is in his role to do what’s best for the team.
No matter how much it hurts. No matter how many people cry. No matter how personal the attacks become. Whether it’s making the hard, unpopular calls on Bernie Kosar or Drew Bledsoe or Lawyer Milloy, Belichick can make them because he’s got the belly for it. It is, in my opinion, part of his DNA because of how he was raised, a product of the Naval Academy even though he wasn’t a Midshipman.
If it happens -- and I would rather it didn’t -- you hope it won’t be messy, but you know it probably will be.
"It will end badly," Tom Brady Sr., said two years ago. "It does end badly. And I know that because I know what Tommy wants to do. He wants to play 'til he's 70 . . . It's a cold business. And for as much as you want it to be familial, it isn't."
Curran: The Patriots, Tom Brady and the gathering storm
I feel like it will be deep down
Today, on the three-year anniversary of the Patriots drafting Jimmy Garoppolo, the Jimmy over Tommy possibility remains real.
More probable than not? Not quite. But with the draft passing and Garoppolo remaining in New England, the Tom Brady Doomsday Clock inched closer to midnight.
The decision the greatest coach in NFL history will eventually make about the greatest quarterback in NFL history will alter their legacies and color the perception of all they built in a nearly two-decade collaboration with the Patriots.
If Brady hadn’t won five Super Bowls, galvanized a fanbase in defiance of the NFL that persecuted him, helped make a few billion for the Family Kraft and given the region something to do with itself in the fall and winter for the past 18 years, he’d probably already be gone.
Because the other side of why Brady’s been able to pilot the Patriots to greatness is that Belichick set the flight plan. And that plan includes an unflinching, unapologetic, simplistic mantra that he is in his role to do what’s best for the team.
No matter how much it hurts. No matter how many people cry. No matter how personal the attacks become. Whether it’s making the hard, unpopular calls on Bernie Kosar or Drew Bledsoe or Lawyer Milloy, Belichick can make them because he’s got the belly for it. It is, in my opinion, part of his DNA because of how he was raised, a product of the Naval Academy even though he wasn’t a Midshipman.
If it happens -- and I would rather it didn’t -- you hope it won’t be messy, but you know it probably will be.
"It will end badly," Tom Brady Sr., said two years ago. "It does end badly. And I know that because I know what Tommy wants to do. He wants to play 'til he's 70 . . . It's a cold business. And for as much as you want it to be familial, it isn't."
Curran: The Patriots, Tom Brady and the gathering storm
I feel like it will be deep down
.
