Brady Says That Gillette Isn't A Great Home-Field Advantage

SOURCE - We’re not in Kansas City anymore. The nation saw — and heard — how Arrowhead Stadium took back the record for loudest outdoor stadium when the noise level reached 142.2 decibels Monday night when the Chiefs clobbered the Patriots. Now Tom Brady & Co. return to face the Bengals Sunday night in the cozy confines of Gillette Stadium — a place loaded with luxury boxes, Putnam Club seats, and an open end that just sucks the noise out onto Route 1.

“We can’t focus on how loud we cheer or the chants that we have,” Brady said. “Our stadium has been very loud at times and we’ve got sometimes a great crowd, sometimes we don’t have a great crowd. Sometimes it’s not as loud as it may be for other teams, but the better we play, the louder it will be so we’re going to focus on trying to play better. We’ve got a great home record over the years. I think we always play pretty well at home. Our communication is always pretty good. Our fans, they come, they cheer for us. We as players, we’re going to do the best we can. We’re going to try to make plays that excite the crowd and get them going.”

Rarely if ever do I criticize Tom Brady. That’s because it’s rare if ever that Tom Brady deserves criticism. But I wish he’d gone further: The crowd at Gillette sucks. Sure, there are reasons for that: Gillette is a gigantic pain in the ass to get to, it’s full of luxury boxes and club levels, the open end with the lighthouse certainly doesn’t help, and it was designed to be the hub of Patriot Place above all else.

But when big games come down Route 1, the crowd is there. Look at the Colts playoff game last year: That rain-soaked crowd was drunk and loud from the second they stepped in the stadium and the Pats fed off the energy. They were explosive on defense in making Andrew Luck look like Peyton Manning when he wore a Colts uni to Foxboro (not a compliment) and on offense in busting 30 runs of 90+ yards (roughly).

That doesn’t make it a good home-field.

A good home-field gets their team up even when they’re a week 3 underdog coming into the game at 1-2 like the Chiefs were on Monday. What would make Gillette a good home-field is showing up in a game like week 3 against the Raiders when in reality it was so quiet you could hear Oakland’s snap count from the opposite endzone.

I’m not saying we’re bad fans because that’s not true. The Pats have sold out every game since 1994 which includes some pretty shitty years. But it’s like Brady said: the fans get loud when the Pats make plays. That’s true of any team, but it’s backwards of a good home-field advantage: a great crowd doesn’t need a 70-yard touchdown to get excited.  They’re up at the start of the game and they’re loud throughout. Brady isn’t in the best position to be dishing out criticism right now, but it would have been nice to hear him say so.