Shutterstock
Finally! FINALLY. The Patrio … actually, let’s have The Rock kick this one off.
FINALLY … THE PATRIOTS HAVE BEGUN … TO FALL APART AT THE SEAMS.
As a Jets fan, I can confidently say I’ve been waiting for this day for over 15-years-now, as the Patriots have bee dominating the AFC East since the year 2000 — essentially my entire football life. Well, 5 Super Bowl Championships and 18 years later, and we’ve finally made it, as it appears the New England Patriots, the Evil Empire, is falling apart at the seams.
According to the lengthy ESPN report (an excellent ‘on the bowl’ read if there ever was one), the cracks began to reveal themselves back in September after the release of Brady’s nutrition book “The TB12 Method”.
Few in the building had a problem with Brady’s method — mostly based on stretching with bands, eating lots of vegetables, drinking lots of water, getting lots of sleep and, most of all, achieving peak “pliability.” They did have a problem with what Brady and Guerrero promised the TB12 Method could do. They claimed it could absolve football of responsibility for injury: “When athletes get injured, they shouldn’t blame their sport,” Brady wrote. The method also was so consuming and unwavering in its rules and convictions that, while it helped some players, it felt “like a cult”
Many inside the Patriots organization were suspicious of Brady’s trainer Alex Gurrero, says that “Tom changed” and “that’s where a lot of these problems started.”
Brady’s trainer and his methods continued to cause a divide in the organization, with players becoming unsure if they should report to team doctors or Guerrero’s TB12 clinic. As the ESPN story puts it, players couldn’t decide between “risk alienating the NFL’s most powerful coach or risk alienating the NFL’s most powerful quarterback”.
The article, which clocks in at about 4000 words, goes into further details about the current dynamic between Brady, Belichick, and Kraft. Most interestingly is the section about San Fransisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Grappolo. Reportedly, Brady, feeling the pressure of having Grappolo be the QB of the future, went over Belichick’s head to Kraft to have Grappolo traded.
Trouble in paradise, indeed.
Be sure to check out the full story over on ESPN if you hate the Patriots as much as I do.
