Revenge is a dish best served... on Sundays? For the first team since their meeting in Super Bowl 52, the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles will go up against each other later this week. A lot has happened for the Patriots since their 41-33 loss on the game’s biggest stage — most notably the team recapturing the Super Bowl just one year later — but one man is still not over the defeat almost two years later: Tom Brady.
The six-time world champion was asked about the upcoming rematch between the Patriots and Eagles during an appearance on WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show on Monday morning, and he made sure to remind the host that the memory of that fateful day in February 2018 was still fresh on his mind: “You assume I’m over it. Come on now! There’s a lot of mental scar tissue from that year. That was a tough game,” said Brady when the topic came up.
“In a lot of ways I think we learned from that year and we came back stronger the next year and we won the Super Bowl [in 2018],” continued the 42-year-old.”I think everything is a matter of perspective. I think when you play in that game and you play great teams, you’re not going to win them all. This is not the Harlem Globetrotters versus the Washington Generals. This is all about tough competition against the best teams.”
Brady, of course, knows what he is talking about. The future Hall of Famer, who is trying to lead his team to a record-tying fourth straight title game appearance this year, has played in nine Super Bowls over the course of his legendary career and had to leave the field a loser on three of those occasions. And while he does own more championship rings than any other quarterback, the losses are apparently still serving as a motivational tool.
“They deserved it that year, and now a couple years later, we get a chance to play the organization again. We’ve had a lot changes, they’ve had a lot of changes — it’s totally different circumstances. Huge game for us. Big game for them. The better team is going to win,” said Brady. “We’ve got to get ready for a great week of preparation and then get ready to go in the there and play our best game of the season, on the road, in a really tough environment.”
“It should be a great Sunday afternoon for football,” he continued. The game against Philadelphia does not just give the Patriots a small change at revenge, it also is an opportunity for the Patriots to start well into the second half of their season — one that will be kicked off by four straight games against playoff-caliber teams like the Eagles.