It’s been 18 years, but Drew Bledsoe remembers Sept. 7, 2003, as if he just threw that seven-yard touchdown pass to Dave Moore. As if that Bills’ defense just picked off Tom Brady four times. As if Lawyer Milloy were just cut by the Patriots and signed by Buffalo last week.
Absolutely, yes, that experience—Bills 31, Patriots 0—sticks with him.
“I only beat them one time,” Bledsoe said this week, from the road, on business running his wine company in the Pacific Northwest. “But that one time felt awfully damn good, man. You can downplay it all you want. It matters. And it certainly will matter to those guys.”
Bledsoe can’t say he knows exactly what Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are feeling ahead of this week’s showdown in Foxboro, given just how distinct this reunion is in terms of the length of time and level of accomplishment that working relationship had. But he is familiar with the emotion of going home again, to face the coach who let you go—and the sort of moment Brady will be out there pursuing on Sunday night under the lights at Gillette Stadium.
Thing is, though, Sept. 7, 2003 wasn’t the first time Bledsoe returned to New England in an unfamiliar uniform, and it wasn’t the first second time he’d played his old team. It took three tries for him to get one over on the Patriots and, as he said, he never pulled it off again.
Such is the challenge Brady’s facing this week.
Now, to be sure, Brady isn’t facing the Patriots of Mike Vrabel, Tedy Bruschi and Richard Seymour. And Brady’s bringing the cavalry back with him to Massachusetts—he’s got a veteran line in front of him and as talented and balanced a group of skill players alongside him as there is in the NFL.
Still, what’s in front of the greatest Patriot ever as he preps for his old team is something that’s routinely turned other quarterbacks in his position into fractions of what they’d usually be. It’s not really the players Brady’s going against (though they’ll obviously be a part of it) so much as it’s being up against a coach who plays on an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses as well as anyone in NFL history facing a player he knows inside and out.
Belichick vs. Brady means plenty to Bill and Tom, regardless of what they say.
But there’s more to the matchup than just pride or any unresolved grievances. There’s also what’s going to happen in the game itself, and how Belichick’s knowledge of Brady plays into it.
