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ERIK BRADY
Tom Brady

Why I hate Tom Brady — and his merchandise too

Erik Brady
USA TODAY
Confetti falls as Patriots quarterback Tom Brady walks off the field after Super Bowl LII.

So the results are in: Tom Brady is No. 1 in sales of licensed NFL player-identified merchandise. This is about as surprising as his New England Patriots playing in Super Bowls.

This is not good news for me. I share a surname with him.

When your name is Brady, you will be asked ad nauseam if you’re related to Tom — when you check into a hotel or rent a car or interview Dan Snyder. (Yeah, he actually asked me that in 2013.)

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I usually try to fake a smile — it’s more like a grimace — as if I haven’t heard it 100 times before. And I’ve had plenty of practice at faking that smile. That’s because in the decades preceding the ascent of Tom you-know-who, I was asked ad nauseam if I was from the Brady Bunch.

That show lasted all of five seasons but somehow those 117 episodes still haunt me.

I don’t hate the Golden Boy because he’s handsome. (I’m not.) I don’t hate him because his wife is a supermodel. (My wife is drop-dead gorgeous too. Like Gisele, she kept her maiden name — lest she be, gasp, Carol Brady.)

Did I mention I’m from Buffalo? Bills fans don’t much care for Tom Terrific, who is 27-3 against Buffalo in his career. That’s the most wins by a starting quarterback against a single opponent in NFL history. (Now that’s a Brady bunch.)

When my son was a senior in high school — 15 years ago in suburban Washington — his friends bought him a personalized Bills jersey for his birthday. They put the number he wore on his high school basketball team on it — 12 — and, of course, his last name.

Everywhere he went people thought he was wearing a Tom Brady jersey. Today it hangs in the back of his closet. He hasn’t worn it in 15 years. I raised the kid well.

And at least that accursed jersey did not count in Brady’s ever-growing, cash-register-ringing merchandise total.

 

  

 

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