Tom Brady Has Trolls

Confession time.

I used to hate Tom Brady.

Nevermind his killer work ethic, personal plant-based health regime, and thousand-watt smile. Not even marrying Gisele, who I love, tempered my distaste for a guy who seemed arrogant and smug. I also had a hard time with a man who acted as if nothing he did or could do was wrong despite the allegations of his involvement with "Deflate Gate."

I also didn’t like that he and his team won the Super Bowl all the time. The New England Patriots are to the NFL what the New York Yankees are to MLB and Alabama is to college football. Authentic sports fans who cheer for other teams love them the first time they win and then hate them when they continue winning.

All that aside, I, like millions of other sports fans, watched the Sunday Night Football game between the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday because it was THE big deal game that was promised to be THE game to watch. If you could only watch one football game all day -- or even all season -- this was the one. Forget the others. Even if you don’t like either the Patriots or the Buccaneers, you didn’t want to miss this game.

The big deal had to do with Tom Brady returning to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts as the quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was the first time he’d been back since he left the Patriots franchise in 2019, allegedly because their salary offer was too low for the 40-something quarterback. The Bucs were all too happy to take him and he seems to be doing just fine there.

The New England Patriots may be the team that poured the foundation on which the house of Brady will forever stand and where six of his seven Super Bowl trophies reside. But the Buccaneers is the house he lives in now and managed to bring a Super Bowl trophy home to earlier this year in February. 

Belichick vs Brady memes circulated across social media all week. Huge amounts of digital money exchanged hands through the plethora of sports books now available right from the comfort and convenience of your phone. Who will it be: Brady or Belichick? Place your bets now! Online sports sites asked similar questions. Will all the hype, emotion and reflection leading up to the game on Sunday throw Tom Brady for a loop? Or will he trot onto the field calm, collected, and oh so very cool, showing the fans packed into the stadium and watching on big screens around the globe that there’s a very good reason he’s the GOAT at 44 years old? (Spoiler alert: he’s definitely the GOAT.)

Unless watching paint dry is how you’d rather spend your time for three+ hours on a Sunday night from approximately 8:15-midnight EDT, tuning in to witness history in the making was a no brainer.

Naturally, everyone and their dog had an opinion about who would win the battle between Brady and Belichick. I asked my dad who he favored. 

“I’ve never cared for Belichick," he said in a way that was non committal yet simultaneously told you exactly where he stood. “I just want to see a good football game.”

“I agree,” mom piped up from her chair. “I want to see a good football game, too.”

Ten minutes earlier I had texted my one-word answer to my partner in response to the same question.

Brady.

I’d debated. I’m not a big Belichick fan, but as I've already made radically clear, Brady hasn’t been my go-to guy, either. However, when the camera panned to a luxury box in the stadium showing Tom Brady’s parents and Gisele looking on in awe and wonder at this man who continues to defy laws of nature, I felt my heart twinge like the Grinch’s when Max looks at him with those sad eyes. When he asked Gisele to marry him, I thought, she said yes. I mean, Gisele, who didn't need his money because she's worth more than he is.

How bad could he really be?

These thoughts led me to see if Tom Brady has an Instagram account, that social bastion of either humble pie or inflated self-flattery. Sure enough, he does. With 10.2 million followers. For all the negativity around the picture-sharing social media platform, Instagram is, to a certain degree, the great equalizer. Yes, Tom Brady is uber famous and has more money than he knows what to do with. Yes, he has seven Super Bowl rings and is chasing an eighth. Yes, he’s married to a supermodel, loves his mom, and has three great looking kids.

But for all the things that catapulted Tom Brady into the stratosphere beyond everyday human existence, one thing pulls him back down to earth to roam among the rest of us mere mortals faster than a Wile E Coyote drops over a cliff.

Trolls.

That’s right. Tom Brady -- the GOAT himself -- has Internet trolls.

If someone saw me upon making this discovery, they might wonder what delicious secret I was privy to, why my face was covered with a shit-eating grin.

And I would loudly proclaim, "Tom Brady has internet trolls! Tom Brady has internet trolls!" followed by peels of maniacal cinematic laughter for emphasis.

One troll in particular is not only ruthless but relentless, posting dozens upon dozens of comments on every post Tom Brady shares. When you visit this troll's profile, you learn that they identify as “Girl” with the ubiquitous gray and white stock avatar, 10 posts of her own, 8 followers, and following 31 people. She writes prolific comments under Tom Brady’s posts that suggest she is mentally challenged, possibly even insane. Of the 13,000 or so comments Tom Brady gets on one post, for example, hers make up the majority of them.

The obvious question to ask here is why? Why does Tom Brady allow someone like this post as many odd, nasty, and personally attacking comments as she does? Why doesn’t he -- or someone in his entourage -- have these comments removed? Better still -- why doesn’t he block her?

I want to believe he or someone in his circle -- at the very least, Gisele! -- is aware of this troll and what she writes. Does he not know? Does he just not care? Does he like having his comment numbers high and she is all too willing to help him achieve this goal? Or is something else going on?


Playing in any online space brings with it the chance of being attacked by any or all of the following menaces: trolls, critics, bullies. The differences among these three pests are as follows. A critic sees a problem and writes it down in detail. A troll creates a problem based on an insecurity or weakness it senses then zeros in on that with the intention of hurting you. A bully goes straight for the jugular, wanting nothing more than to hurt you because in most cases, hurting you makes them feel better.

The individual consistently posting non-sensical comments under Brady's posts seems to be an amalgamation of all three. In some of her posts, she criticizes Brady for his decisions. In others, she highlights what she perceives are Tom Brady’s weaknesses, extensively elaborating on them in a way that suggests she wants to hurt him. And in still others, she outright attacks Brady personally, for no other reason one can only assume than to hurt him because she herself is hurting.

The deeper into her world of comments on Tom Brady’s posts I got, the more my initial glee transformed into sadness rimmed with sympathy. I wondered about the person behind this profile. Is she a real person? Was the video she posted showing her boobs something she did of her own volition or did someone force her to do that? Was she a victim of tremendous on-going abuse growing up and thus, deep trauma? Does someone continue to abuse her?

I wondered if Tom Brady wondered about her, too, which is why he’s done nothing to remove her comments. There's always the chance she's a bot, programmed in a bot farm halfway around the world with specific keywords related to Tom Brady. Removing her may be too much trouble. Bots, like trolls, can be relentless. 

As I scrolled through Tom Brady’s Insta feed, I couldn’t not notice the kindness with which he wrote about his teammates, parents, and of course, Gisele. Things about how wonderful a mother she is to their children. How she keeps the family together. How he loves her to the stars and back. Even writing messages in her native Portuguese.

Tom Brady writes the kinds of things women love to hear from the person they’ve chosen to spend their life with. The public acknowledgement of undying love and appreciation is an extra layer of wonderfulness many people never experience. Not that it’s necessary for a relationship to be solid and strong. I know plenty of people who love their partners dearly and don’t have any social media accounts on which to proclaim their affection. But to see a man of Brady’s status and public stature do it with gusto is pretty remarkable.

Not a trace of arrogance or pomposity. His posts about his wife, children, parents, and teammates are genuine, kind, heartfelt. The Brady monster I had built in my mind doesn’t exist. At least not on Instagram. Is he a fierce competitor on the gridiron? Can he run his mouth when he’s hot? Damn straight. But no champion wins without grit, focus, and determination. No champion is perfect.

I now follow Tom Brady on Instagram @tombrady and look forward to seeing his posts. I don’t plan on turning into one of his superfans anytime soon, but I have a newfound respect for the man. He’s more human than I once gave him credit for. If he plays professional football until he’s fifty — as he’s talking about doing — all the more power to him. 10x the GOAT he already is, showing all of us how anything’s possible when we put our minds to what we really want.

That's an attitude I'll always get behind.