The NFL is getting a free month without Tom Brady, but his opponents probably won’t like the guy who returns to the New England Patriots in Week 5.
Brady, who’s currently serving his four-game Deflategate suspension, was tabbed Saturday as the No. 1 player on The MMQB 100, the website’s list of the top 100 people who will shape the NFL season in 2016.
So, how does a guy who is missing a quarter of the season make a bigger impact than anyone else in the league? By taking the NFL by storm when he starts playing again. And according to his former Patriots teammates, that’s exactly what Brady will do.
“This dude is gonna be more motivated than he’s ever been,” former Patriots receiver Donté Stallworth told MMQB.com. “He won’t say it, but I know he has a fire burning now. It’s gonna be like Game of Thrones.”
If you know anything at all about HBO’s hit show, that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the league. Another one of Brady’s ex-teammates also believes winter is coming for New England’s future opponents on the QB’s vengeance tour.
“It’s bigger than beating the Browns,” ex-Pats safety Rodney Harrison said. “It’s sending a message to the league. … You get older, and sometimes you need something to motivate you. Tom will come back bitter, he’ll come back angry, and he’ll use that as fuel.”
The Patriots already are 1-0 without Brady at the helm. But former New England wideout Troy Brown added that even if expectations are lowered in his absence, it only will add more kindling to TB12’s fire.
“Go back and look at any game we lost where the team didn’t play well — and there aren’t many of them — and see how he came back after people wrote the team off,” Brown said. “Just look at that next game, and multiply that by four or five.”
In other words: Watch out, NFL.
Thumbnail photo via Jim Dedmon/USA TODAY Sports Images
