Tom Brady chose to leave the Patriots out of his retirement letter
After days of speculation and conflicting reports, Tom Brady made his official retirement announcement on Tuesday via Instagram.
The post contained nine slides. One picture of Tom in a Bucs jersey, and eight paragraphs about his appreciation for the game, the Tampa Bay organization, and their fans. Oddly enough, there wasn’t a single mention of his 20 years spent in New England:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZcDCOOr-v4/?utm_medium=copy_link
After much backlash, Brady did ultimately express gratitude towards New England when he reposted Robert Kraft’s farewell message to his story:
Patriots fans appear to be torn on how to react to all of this. Some are feeling slighted, some are letting him off the hook because he already paid respects to the Patriots when he left two years ago.
Here’s where I stand. Tom Brady is under no obligation to say anything about the Pats and us fans. That’s understood. But he has enough intelligent people around him to advise him to at least mention the region in which he spent 90% of his professional career. The decision to leave the Patriots out of his post was intentional and it comes from a place of remorse. He’s still upset that they gave up on him. Whether or not one agrees with this stance, it would be foolish to ignore the intent behind failing to acknowledge the Pats in his official retirement statement. One that you know he put a lot of thought into.
I’m not asking people to be mad at Tom Brady, I’m just asking them to accept the fact that he doesn’t currently have the Patriots Pride that we all want him to have. Hopefully that changes with time, but that’s where we stand currently with our former hometown hero. Accept it and move on.