As James Baldwin once wrote, “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

The pain of not being Tom Brady, best clutch quarterback in football, that is.

This NY-to-MA transplant doesn’t hate.  Of course, had the last Superbowl gone differently, maybe I would.  As it is, I really don’t care.

I hate OSU so much, I wouldn’t root for them if they were fighting terrorists.  When they play Southern Cal, I root for the earth to swallow the stadium whole.

I went to ND though, so this is my birthright.

As for Tom Brady… definitely haterade, and probably a lot of projection/jealousy.

It’s mostly the purdy.  Peyton Manning is more overexposed than Tiger Woods RIDING Reggie Bush while Britney and Paris wave pom poms.

But he looks like a poorly drawn cartoon.  The other reason people hate Brady but tolerate Manning is can you show me an instance where Brady mocked himself?  Manning’s United Way Spoof on SNL was brilliant.  As annoying as Bret Favre is, he looks like a football player.  Brady looks like (and effectively IS) a male model.

I’d explain why i hate him so much, but I’m too busy laughing!

Tom Brady was on SNL too, if I’m not mistaken - I didn’t see it but I can’t imagine they let him get away without any self-mockery.

(google)

Thusly.

His Family Guy appearance was pretty funny, too.

I think a lot of it is transferred hatred of Pats fans.  He’s the face of a lot of arrogance blowing off the Charles.  Not the least of it coming from Bill Simmons.

Also, Peyton Manning is goofy, self-effacing, and likeable, while Brady seems to be more tabloid-heavy and shows up at such places as a Bush state of the union.

I think it boils down to 4 basic things:

1.) Brady has never struggled.  Since he took over in 2001 his team has been a contender (if not the Superbowl champ) every year.  There’s something that sports fans like about someone who has to deal with poor teams, or a frustrating season and then comes back to win.  Someone who just always wins is a bit annoying.

2.) The sportscasters pure, unadulterated love for Brady.  During the Elway/Marino/Montana years there were actual ebates over their strengths and weaknesses and which quarterback you’d rather have.  Now the media does nothing but gush over Brady.  Look at how Peter King acted when Brady got hurt on Sunday.  He was treating his commentary like he was reporting on the Kennedy assasination. 

3.) Massholes.  Some of the bandwagoneers have been completely out of hand.  I mean Bill Simmons wrote about having to talk with his dad multiple times on Sunday about it.  It was a knee injury that happened playing football, not a freak blimp accident.  When people start acting like Brady’s injury is worth the rending of garments, it makes those of us outside that sphere a little less sympathetic.

4.) Belicek.  He’s an asshole.  Tom Brady, no matter how hard he works or nice he acts, is stained slightly by his coach’s attempts to obey the letter of the law, rather than the spirit at every turn.  The NFL and the media esperately want to make Brady the face of the league, and his coach spends as much time as he can acting like the rest of the league (including the fans) are a bunch of snotty teenagers who are lucky that Belicek is even willing to speak with them.

What kind of lefty elitist latte-swilling arugula munching World Cup watching blog is this, anyway?

I’m convinced Brady is hated mainly because he plays for the Patriots.  For all my life the Pats were predictably pathetic and everyone knew that New England would never be known for football.  Then Brady and Belichick changed all that, and most football fans around the country are mortally offended that their stereotype of the lame northeasterners is dead.  This also helps to explain why people who don’t really follow football wouldn’t understand why he is hated while, say, Joe Montana was beloved.

Belichick is a football coach pure and simple.  I totally disagree that he “acts like people are lucky to speak to him.”  He gives great interviews and shows real humanity… when he is talking about the nuts and bolts of football.  Any other topic, he considers it a distraction and blows it off.  He is especially dismissive of superstar glitz and media chumminess.  By all rights he should be a blue-collar hero in the USA, fighting back against the shallow and celebrity-based culture, but for some reason he is also hated.  Make him the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, there would be a statue of him towering over Point State Park.  Put Brady on a team in California, Texas, or Florida, and he would be the Greatest Sportsman of All Time.  But playing in Boston?  They must be effete snobs, or overrated media darlings, or the beneficiary of cheating.  People just don’t want to believe that one of the greatest football teams ever resides in Massachusetts.  I think they call it cognitive dissonance.

“MM - see, what’s weird about number 2 is that if it’s bad for Brady, it’s downright totalitarian for Favre.  Try to find a sportscaster in the past three years who’s said that Favre is a hotheaded gunslinger who’s a 50/50 shot to make the right decision in crunch time.  You can’t, because he’s DEAD.”

yeah but Favre loses, which makes him less hate-able. He’s also been around, been around long enough that he’s struggled, he’s been stuck with rookie teams he’s played beaten and battered, and at this point he’s old, he almost seems like a fixture of the sport.

That said I remember some serious Favre hating back in the day when he was young and the packers were more dominant.

Joe Montana played in San Francisco.  I don’t think people have tougher stereotypes of people out there than they do for Bostoners/Northeasterners.  In any case, Belichick is far more hated than mentor Bill Parcells, who coached both New York teams and the Pats themselves before his current red-state kick.

And Belichick picked up a slumping Pats team, but they had Super Bowl appearances in the 1985 and 1996.  They hadn’t been a doormat for a while - four playoff berths in six years before the Belichick/Brady era began. 

The Patriots are hated because they have a history of running up the score, dirty hits, and a steady stream of media adoration that their fans proclaim isn’t enough.

Hey, some of us have never gotten over thinking Kobe was a jerk.

I used to be a Pats fan, and a Tom Brady fan. I stopped liking the Pats last season because it got to the point where being a Pats fan was like being a Yankees fan. It annoyed me how upset people were because after winning three Superbowls in seven years, and then winning every game by, in most cases, huge margins, they lost one damn Superbowl.

Tom Brady himself has just gotten overexposed and annoying. He and Gisele have become one of those annoying, over-photographed celebrity couples. The situation with Bridget Moynahan and the baby is sketchy- unless you know them personally, you don’t know what the actual story was, but it doesn’t speak well for him that he doesn’t seem to have much time with his son.

But all that said, I’m sorry he’s hurt, and I hope he recovers completely. I don’t really like him anymore, but I don’t wish him harm.

It’s all about last season, when the Pats were playing like classless jerks. Yes, that’s more Belichick’s classlessness than Brady’s, but still, he was the beneficiary of throwing touchdown passes when up 49-10. Had the Pats run it up early and coasted, I think most people would have been rooting for them to win last year, but they angered the Football Gods, and starting with the Super Bowl, the Football Gods have had their revenge. And karmic payback is fun.

I don’t wish the guy ill, but I mean—poor guy, he’s going to have to go home to his millions of dollars and his girlfriend Giselle. He’ll be okay. But seeing the Pats in the hurt locker? That’s outstanding.

As a Jets fan (stop laughing!), I don’t hate Brady, but it’s frustrating that the only reason he even started to play was that my team knocked Drew Bledsoe out of a game.  It’s kind of like when Miami drafted Marino (after about 5 other QBs, one of them the Jets’ Ken O’ Brien) the year after Miami beat the Jets in the AFC Championship game; we can’t catch a fucking break.*

Also, it was getting annoying how sportscasters made it seem like there was a Grand Canyon of difference between Brady and Peyton Manning.

Oh, BTW, ARod is actually worth $25M/year, especially if he breaks Bonds’ record.  Like Pujols in the NL, he’s always one of the top two players in his league, but because of his ridiculous consistency he’s overlooked in MVP voting unless he has an otherworldly season.  And to preempt the nonsense someone will probably type:  There are clutch hits, but no clutch hitters.

*Right now, though, as a Jets fan I’m far more annoyed and ashamed of other Jets fans (Cheering Brady’s injury; cheering Pennington’s injury Game 1 of last year; yelling at every woman passing by Gate D to “take it off”).

I think it’s mostly washover from hating the Patriots.  Yeah, cheering for the Pats has lately felt like cheering for the Yankees (which is to say, cheering for the casino at the blackjack table), but there’s one key difference - much as I hate the Yankees, I can at no point accuse them of cheating.

I don’t know why Brady is so hated (other than being a Patriot), but the “Peyton Manning chokes in big games” thing is mostly a myth.  His biggest choke as a pro was throwing an interception to Troy Polamalu that wound up being incorrectly overturned in the oddest finish to a playoff game in NFL history.  In no other game as a pro could you really say that Manning choked - in the 20-3 loss to the Pats, Manning played fine.

Brady doesn’t deserve to be hated, but Manning doesn’t deserve his rep as a choke artist either.

APS

Association with Belichik, lack of setbacks at the pro-level, and supermodel envy is the problem with Brady. As for A-Rod, there may not be clutch hitters, but there are clutch players, Jordan, Bird, Montana, Stauback, Gossage etc.

By the way, two 4th quarter comeback drives does absolve Eli of any sin, and it wasn’t about going to NY, it was about not going to SD, they had just fired Shottienhiemer and Archie’s sources were reporting turmoil in SD. And SD got Merriman and Rivers out of the deal, both great players.

And I would take them over Eli, except for those last ten minutes of the SB42 that validates the Giants move.

Think of this poor put upon Giants fan, It’ll be a few years before I can bitch about anything NY does, meanwhile, week after week the Giants will win or lose without fail in the last two minutes, EVERY Giant’s game is like that. If they get blown out early at least I could go rake some leaves or something.

Tom Brady IS a great quarterback. Probably in the top 5 of all time. The hate he gets is a direct result of his coach being a cheater.

He went to Michigan.

So I hate.

Unlike Peyton Manning, he doesn’t choke in big games.

Um, Super Bowl?  18-1?

Tom Brady is an ordinary human being with extraordinary athletic talent, in very lucky circumstances. My take is that our love or hate for him proceeds from our own needs, and has very little to do with whether or not he “deserves” hatred. He doesn’t. No one does.

However, hating the Patriots saves us from having to deal with the real things that cause us pain. (I don’t hate the Pats, by the way. They’re an original AFL team. The Cowboys for me.)

tOSU was despised long before they lost big games. Remember Woody Hayes supporting Nixon and the Vietnam War? Remember what they did to Robert Smith when he suggested that athletes were expected to avoid education while working for their scholarship? Remember Woody smacking the Clemson linebacker? Remember Maurice Clarett?

I figure the hate for Brady is mostly, if not entirely, Belicek’s fault for the shady ethics he brought to the game last season.

I felt sorry for Brady getting sidelined for the rest of the year - knee injuries are bad.

Unlike Eli Manning, the defining moment of his career wasn’t throwing a tantrum of draft day (and yes, that’s still his biggest contribution to football history, the Super Bowl ring be damned).

It was the same tantrum John Elway threw, and everyone seems to be over that.  And unlike Elway, it didn’t take Manning over a decade to get that ring.

Unlike Peyton Manning, he doesn’t choke in big games.

Um, Super Bowl?  18-1?

Well, he did throw a go-ahead touchdown pass with 3 minutes left.  It’s not his fault the defense couldn’t make a stop afterwards.

Always liked Brady.  He might be the best ever.  He carried that offense when they had little else, and last year, with weapons, well you know what they did.  Used to root for that team.  But it’s tough to root for their coach, even though he’s a great coach.

I did enjoy it when my WORLD CHAMPION NY GIANTS made them 18 and 1.  Ah, that’s good.

Eli is not Tom, but he did get the ring last year, and got the job done every time needed in the playoffs.  Not great numbers, but clutch when it counted, surprising me.

People hate Brady for all the same reasons they hate the Yankees, mostly envy, I think.  He’s led a charmed life up til now.

Bill Belichik is mostly hated because he blows off the media and doesn’t take shit from anyone. I love how people complain about what a jerk he is; you know, if I were him, I wouldn’t think that I had anything to say to media parasites either. I’d just tell them to kiss my ass after every game, win or lose.

How can you say Brady was never on a bad team?  The Pats were not even predicted to win their division the first year he came in and took them to the Superbowl.  His receiving corps up until last yeat starred the likes of Reche Caldwell, Doug Gabriel, David Givens, Bethel Johnson, and Tim Dwight.  Even players that were good on the Pats like Deion Branch and David Patten have sucked for other teams.  Who made them good in NE?  Brady.  Show me another QB was that level of receiving talent that put up the wins this guy has.

It’s probably general Boston-weariness.  As a proud Boston resident, it’s totally aweXome that our sports teams are in perfect form this millenium, after like 20 years of generally breaking our hearts and minds (except, of course, the sox, who did it for 86).  Now the sox have won the world series twice, the celtics won the NBA title, the Pats have won the superbowl THREE TIMES, hell, even the NE Revolution is pretty good.  Brady’s clearly the figurehead for the Boston sports renaissance (his team was the first to win anything), so he gets a lot of the projected haterade that any city gets when it wins too much.

Of course, I don’t think it’s possible for Boston to win TOO much, but I’m pretty biased.

Go Bucks

Re: Brady hating

I would say Brady comes off as very smug now, as if the world owes him something just for being the great guy he thinks he is.  He certainly came off as insufferable during the run up to the last Super bowl (though I did relish his ironic off hand dismissal of the Plaxico Buress score prediction [Giants 21-17]).

Also, I believe in the principle of shared suffering/success.  Namely that the joy of success and misery of failure should rotate throughout a laugue over the course of a decade or so.  that’s why I pulled for the Red Sox in their curse breaking world series.  I am by no means of Red Sox fan (Mets all the way), but I felt pretty bad for the ocmmunity of Red Sox fans.  Now that the Red Sox have gotten a good bit of success I veiw them as the Yankees: they have had enough success, let someone else have a turn at the table (which is why I am quite excited for the Tampa Bay Rays).

While I am never happy to see people get hurt, Brady’s injury is, in my mind, good for the League.  Since 2001, there has only been one year (2002) where the Patriots did not win the AFC East.  After a while that just gets boring and is bad for the sport.  Now the AFC East is much more open Division where anything could happen.  that makes much more compelling football.

Oh, and for the off hand slight of Eli, keep this inmind: He was the only quarterback in Championship history to lead his team on a game winning touchdown drive when anything less would have been failure (http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/Articles/11_2167_Eli_stands_alone.html).  And against an undefeated team no less.

So say what you will about his behavior on draft day, but don’t denigrate his astounding 4th quarter performance in the most recent Super Bowl.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for stoking my everlasting flame of hate for Eli “Whinyasstittybaby” Manning.  It’s so bad that it extends to his brother Peyton, and I live in East Tennessee where Peyton Manning is practically worshipped with animal sacrifices.  My dream game is one where the Colts play the Giants and they both leave the game with career-ending turf toe.

Pale Scot, you’re wrong—the Chargers hadn’t fired Marty yet.  Eli’s tantrum was on draft day before the 2004 season; Marty didn’t get fired until after the end of the 2006 season.  Eli, and Archie both, just thought he was too damn special to play for what was admittedly a pretty dysfunctional team at that point.

And the Chargers got more than Rivers and Merriman; in exchange for Eli, the Chargers got:

Philip Rivers (Pro Bowl)
Shawne Merriman, (Pro Bowl, Rookie of the Year)
Nate Kaeding (Pro Bowl)
Roman Oben

Immediately after the trade, the 2004 Chargers went 12-4 and won the AFC West.

Immediately after the trade, the 2004 Giants went 6-10.

Individual statistics? Okay:

2004 (Rivers backing up Drew Brees; Manning started midway through season)
Manning: 95 of 197 (48.2%) for 6 TDs and 9 INTs.
Rivers: 5 of 8 (52.5%) for 1 TD and 0 INTs.

2005 (Rivers backing up Drew Brees; Manning starting)
Manning: 294 of 557 (52.8%) for 24 TDs and 17 INTs.
Rivers: 12 of 22 (54.5%) for 0 TDs and 1 INT. (ugh)

2006 (first year of Rivers starting; also Rivers Pro Bowl year)
Manning: 301 of 552 (57.7%) for 24 TDs and 18 INTs.
Rivers: 284 of 460 (61.7%) for 22 TDs and 9 INTs.

2007
Manning: 297 of 529 (56.1%) for 23 TDs and 20 INTs.
Rivers: 277 of 460 (60.2%) for 21 TDs and 15 INTs.

Yeah, he’s got a ring.  So?  Dan Marino went his whole career without one, but Trent Dilfer has a ring.  So does Brad Johnson.  Eli’s still a WATB, and always will be.

Here’s the thing, though: everyone hates a team with too much success; that Brady is also great looking (btw, not so much in college ... he was okay but kind of geeky looking), dates beautiful women, and seems well-spoken and intelligent doesn’t really help his case.  I disagree, though, about blaming him for paparazzi following him.  I don’t blame celebs and sports stars for that happening to them.  I guess a lot of people forget that Brady was a pretty low draft pick and had to split playing time with another QB in college.

Why is Tom Brady so hated?

First, because he dumped the mother of his child for some model floozy.  Second, because he went to the University of Michigan, so he is almost certainly a dick.

For me its definitely the over-the-top media lovefest.  Brady won his first two Super Bowls mostly because he played on teams with a dominant defense, but most of the credit went to Brady.  Peyton Manning was getting bagged for not winning a Super Bowl while his teams were giving up bushels of points and it was squarely on his shoulders to score more, while all Brady had to do was not screw up.  I also don’t think had Trent Dilfer won another Super Bowl with the Ravens the media would have crowned him king, since he didn’t look like a GQ model.  Lot’s to get disgusted about if you aren’t a Patriots fan. Brady is a great QB, don’t get me wrong, but add to it his seeming support of Bush and its a slam dunk.

During the height of Peyton vs Tom debates (pre-2006) I always thought Peyton would have been more likely to have at least three rings with the Patriots than Tom would have been able to lead the Colts to the playoffs 6 of 7 years considering the horrid defenses they had in most of those years.

I put Favre in the same category for the same media over-attention.  But in his defense, he has at least lead some of his teams to winning records by hauling their reeking carcasses to victory almost single-handedly.

It’s the coach- he’s a cheater and a slouch who unapologetically wears sweatsuits to nationally televised games. 

And yes, it’s ALSO the model-pretty (and model-fucking and dumping your pregnant GF) thing.

Peyton Manning is a quarterbacking MACHINE, and a person of substance, determination and great leadership.  He is also very real and self-effacing and approachable.  And he has done incredible things for charity- he has his own wing at Riley Children’s Hospital!  Bought & paid for by the Pey-Back Foundation.

He’s awesome, and Brady sucks balls.

And I’m not just saying that coz I live in Indy and had season tix for 4 yrs (til this yr- BOO high cost of living while my wages went down!!!). 

GO COLTS!!!!!!!

Well there’s two kinds of sporting hate. There’s the kind where you hate a member of your own team, usually because of perceived greed or disloyalty, and the kind where you hate someone from another team because they embody everything about that team that you hate (A-Rod is the former, Derek Jeter the latter - he’s far more universally despised by non-Yankee fans). Brady, rightly or wrongly, stands as a symbol of the Patriots’ arrogance and entitlement and is therefore first target for the negative feelings of opposition fans.

And by the way, when it comes to sporting hatred of both sorts, any American league has a long way to go before it matches the Premiership.

I have absolutely nothing to add to this discussion except that whatever else she is, Gisele is an outspoken (for a super model) reproductive rights activist and willing to challenge the Catholic church itself in Brazil.

The reasons for the anti-Brady feeling that I could come up with have already been mentioned, but I do have to say that I like Brady.  Part of this is because I’m a Michigan alum and I’ve been a fan of U-M football since I could walk.  He showed his poise in the 2000 Orange Bowl against Alabama and he’s shown it since.

I don’t hate him but I’ve never warmed to him either.  Kinda like Ted Williams.  Oh, they both play(ed) for Boston teams.  Now I understand.  Die, fiends of darkness.

BTW, if the Yankees are the most hated team in sports they’re also the most loved and most successful sports franchise of all time. *raspberry*

Elmo:

You do realize that Eli didn’t even start most of the games in his first year.  He also led the Giants into the Playoffs for the past 3 years.

And, hate to break it to you, but getting a Super Bowl ring (and being named Super bowl MVP) is kind of a big deal.  It’s not like he was just handed the ring either.  He led two excellent 4th quarter drives (the second arguabley the greatest in Super Bowl history if you look at the link in my previous post) to defeat an undefeated team.

As for Marino never getting a ring: at least he got to a Super Bowl.  Get back to me when Rivers gets to the big one.

Sure Eli can in inconsistent as hell (as a giants fan I am more than aware of that).  But he has gotten the job done and has a ring to show for it, not to mention the phenomenal playoff run he had and the Giant’s record for road games last year (11-1).

Still sucks for Brady though, even if he still has many productive years ahead of him.  I’m sure he was chomping at the bit for another shot at the Super Bowl and two divisional games between Farve and Brady would have been great entertainment.

MDK:

Bah, I say unto you.  Bah.  Sure, getting a SB ring is a big deal, which is why I’m sure Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson were very happy when they got theirs.  Doesn’t say all that much about their individual talent.  A ring doesn’t turn a middling QB like Dilfer (shh! or Eli - shh!) into a great QB.  And the whole point of his tantrum was that he was claiming to be a great QB before he’d thrown his first professional <strike>interception</strike> pass.

If Eli’s going to stamp his feet and cry that he’s just too special and important to play for a bad team, then (sez me) he has to prove it by being great.  Not just good.  In order to walk that talk, he can’t just be a decent QB, getting a ring as part of a really good team—he, himself, has to transform the fortunes of whatever team is blessed with his presence. And in his opportunity to do that, he laid an absolute egg, and—here’s why stats are important—wasn’t as good as the guy he was traded for. HA!

hatehatehatehatehatehate…

Tom Brady was the player throwing touchdown passes late in games that were already won. Some call these ‘fuck you’ touchdowns because they were done to punish opponents who were already beaten. There probably aren’t any football gods, but if there are, they did not waste any time letting Mr. Brady know their disapproval with his obedience to the cheating and score running up coach.