Toei Animation/Cartoon Network/Getty
Everybody’s all geeked up about Tampa Bay, and rightfully so. Seemingly overnight, the Bucs have gone from being quarterback-less — as they decided to move on from former #1 overall draft pick Jameis Winston — to employing arguably the greatest of all-time. Not only that, but they convinced his BFF and fellow all-time-great Rob Gronkowski to come out of retirement to play tight end for them as well. Will the Bucs be good? Probably, I could see them winning 10 to 12 games. But will they be terrifying? Ehhhh. I wouldn’t say so. They are, after all, the Bucs, and the Brady of 2020 is not necessarily the Brady of 2007: he’s effective, not dominant.
But you know what is terrifying? A scorned Bill Belichick, that’s what. I saw a tweet yesterday saying that Gronk didn’t retire from football, he retired from Belichick, and when you combine that with Brady’s relatively unceremonious departure, both of their moves to South Florida feel like personal slights against the future Hall of Fame head coach.
Forced to retreat to his secret lair to lick his wounds, there’s no question that Darth Belichick will return from his self-imposed exile a smarter man, a more cunning man, an angrier man, and worst of all, a more driven man. Similar to Brady himself, Belichick wants to prove that he is the primary architect of the Patriots’ illustrious 20-year dynasty. But while the two men may be focused on the same goal, therein lies the difference between them.
Outside of the plastic that keeps his skin taught, Brady is human, he is a regular man with emotions and fears and passions and desires. His body aches. His wife worries. His children miss him. Not our boy Belichick, the football Terminator. You thought he was angry about how the Brady situation went down over the last couple of years? Imagine how he now feels knowing Gronk abandoned ship — but more importantly, its captain — just to re-emerge as a physically refreshed man on the Flordia Gulf less than two years later. It chills the spine.
They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but I’d reckon even the devil himself wouldn’t double-cross Bill Belichick like this.
***
Eric is a New York City-based and New Jersey-born writer who still isn’t quite sure how he’s allowed to have this much fun for a living and will tell anyone who listens that Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. Follow him on Twitter @eric_ital for movie and soccer takes or contact him eric@brobible.com