Yet, the franchise quarterback took a slight dig at the fan base on Tuesday, expressing some frustration over the empty seats in the fourth quarter of Sunday's blowout victory over the Bengals.
"I looked up, half the stadium was gone when we were up 21 points in the early fourth quarter, which I wasn’t so happy about," Brady told the swarm of reporters surrounding him in the locker room. "I don’t think the Jets fans leave early. They’re going to be loud the whole game."
A slam of the home crowd and a compliment to Jets fans? You expect that from critical media voices like Mike Felger, and you expect that from Fireman Ed's followers down in Jersey, but not from TB12 himself.
Et tu, Brady?
Now, his comments aren't worthy of making the world stop, and really, it makes sense that he doesn't know what it's like to be a football fan in New England. He knows what it's like to throw touchdowns, but he knows not the traffic congestion that lingers around the stadium for hours after the final whistle blows.
Patriots fans, however, know that well. They travel from Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island and all over Massachusetts to get to the game, many of them leaving their homes for 1 p.m. games before the sun comes up. They pay $50 to park their cars (or $150 to park their RVs), they grill, they drink and they enter the stadium to sit in their $100 seats.
They love the Patriots, and if the Patriots are in a tight game that comes down to the wire, they are there until the bitter end.
But when the game starts to turn for one side or the other, they start thinking about logistics.
They could stay until the game ends, and then they can decide whether they want to fire up the grill for a few more hours of tailgating (not likely for those Sunday night or Monday night games) or attempt to crawl down Route 1 for miles before crawling along I-95 for more miles.
A fan who lives in the city of Boston and leaves a Patriots game at, say, 4:15 p.m. can expect to be home any time between 7-8 p.m. If the Pats are holding off a late comeback from Joe Flacco and the Ravens, the fans stay. If Brady is leading a fourth-quarter charge for the ages against Buffalo on Monday night of Week 1, the fans are in the seats.
But if the Patriots are mauling the Bengals, or the Dolphins are running the Wildcat all over the place, the fans need to start thinking about the rest of their day. They've already invested enough time to get there for the game (Foxboro only has 16,000 residents, so suffice it to say the 68,000 in attendance travel at least some distance to get there).
Ellis Hobbs couldn't understand that, but Tom Brady must learn.
And he will. He's not one to take pride in ticking off the locals — remember, shortly after being spotted in that Yankees hat he was sure to never make that mistake again.
So for now, Brady will take a little heat for not knowing what it's like to be a football fan in New England. That's fine, because as long as he remembers what it's like to win football games in New England, those fans can never be mad at him.
