That Great Pregame Super Bowl Speech Tom Brady Gave That the Bucs are Raving About? Yeah, About That. He Plagiarized It. From 2015 Tom Brady.
The Buccaneers handing Tom Brady his seventh ring is the moment I knew was coming and have been dreading like the arrival of Thanos. It's frightening. Turns the legs to jelly. I ask you to what end? Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now it's here. Or should I say, that big, awful, gaudy, extra large cubic zircona pizza is here to haunt my every step.
Along with all the unabashed love between my life's quarterback and the people he left us for. It doesn't get easier. Time doesn't heal all wounds. And when days like this or the White House visit arrive, they pour a whole grinder of TB12 Fitness-approved Himalayan Pink Salt into them.
But that's life. There are winners and there are losers and to the victors go the spoils. History is written by the winners. The Bucs are entitled to the honors and benefits thereof. What they're not entitled to is to write Patriots history like it's their own.
The Bucs players are raving about a "movie worthy" speech Brady gave them before the Super Bowl:
In this video, Mike Evans refers to the “Movie-worthy speech by Tom before the game.
Devin White says, “He didn’t even get us fired up. He just sent chills through your body,” and how his voice changed to the point “He sounded like an Army general.”
Cameron Brate calls it, “The most impassioned speech I’ve ever heard. And adds, “The theme of the speech was honor. Not just honor for ourselves, honor that we will experience in this brotherhood for the rest of our lives.”
While Rob Gronkowski explains, “And it’s not just you that’s recognized as a champ, but it’s your whole entire family. It’s your kids, it’s your aunts, uncles.”
All of which should sound vaguely familiar to anyone who's been paying attention. Gronk might not recognize these words, but every man, woman and child in New England has had them burned into their cerebral cortex for the last six years. I might now remember my wedding vows, but I can recite this speech verbatim, with all the inflections and Al Pacino-like screaming high notes that could set off a car alarm. From the pregame of Super Bowl XLIX against Seattle:
“It started seven, eight months ago, right? All for this moment. It’s about honor! It’s about respect! We win this game, you’re honored! Your kids are honored! Your families are honored! Win on three -- one, two, three, win!”
To make my case, here's the video I can't include here without running afoul of the the NFL Copyright Cops. So you can see for yourself.
So congratulations, Bucs. You're falling all over yourselves over recycled material. Brady's just playing the hits. Mailing it in, like the time I saw Chuck Berry play the South Shore Music Circus with a band of union musicians, ask for requests for 45 minutes and call it a night, no encore. Brady is a Vegas comic working the lounge, doing the same schtick show after show for all the low rollers, who hasn't written a new bit in years. He's a politician giving the same stump speech in city after city. He's the cast of "Festival of the Lion King" at Disney, doing the exact same show eight times a day for all the tourists.
Hey, if it works, it works. It worked out in the best Super Bowl he ever played in six years ago, it worked out in Tampa in February. Why change your set list when the crowd will just sit on their hands once you start playing the stuff from your new album. I just want his teammates to know that what they're so impressed with is nothing more than appropriation of our culture.
P.S. In fairness to Brady, it can't be easy to come up with new speeches when you go to a Super Bowl every other year for 20 years.