Tom Brady plays like hes out for revenge

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CLEVELAND -- delivered a me sage Sunday to commi sioner Roger Goodell, the league and a good chunk of the rest of us who believe the quarterback to be a cheater: Those 406 pa sing yards and three touchdowns were for you.Brady was simply sensational, even if it was against the lowly and now winle s  Sean Rodriguez Jersey 0-5 . No matter. This game was step one in Brady's revenge tour, a useful measuring stick in trying to figure out what Brady, post-Deflategate suspension, will look like. It was the answer to all these questions: He's 39. Would age finally track him down?  He hadn't been with his team. Would rust take a good bit of the sheen off that golden-boy persona? He'd been been publicly shamed, ripped from the game for a quarter of a regular season and branded a cheater by the league itself. Could that unsettle an otherwise unflappable all-time great?Ah, no, on all counts."It was fun to come and play," Brady said afterward. "And fun to win."He was speaking in a cramped interview room, and I swear as he talked it felt like every one of us leaned in to look for a smile, a hint of malice, a Mike Pence-like shake of the head meant to convey what his words wouldn't. I certainly did. But Brady, his dimple and all that rage -- internalized, surely, but there -- stayed right on me sage.Frank Sinatra was not wrong. The best revenge really is ma sive succe s. Not words. Not boasts. Not I-told-you-sos. Just a grand accomplishment and what it says to those who tried to thwart it.  Well, it may be early -- because Cleveland isn't actually the ultimate test -- but this was a very fine start. And while the true test unfolds in the weeks ahead, with the Patriots hosting Cincinnati and then road games against Pittsburgh and Buffalo, doubt Tom Brady at your own risk.Motivation is a special catalyst for accomplishment and greatne s. It hones talent, it Chuck Klein Jersey  focuses it, it brings it to another level. Not the cliche-riddled drivel every athlete will give you -- that every game matters, that they're always motivated for the teams and the guys. I'm talking the stuff of hate, revenge, love -- those moments that take a hold of men and women and make them legends. Of titans who are already were imbued with all-time great talent and then found, or just conjured up in their own mind's eye, a burning need for revenge, a sense of betrayal, a self-righteous rage, an obse sion to prove the world wrong. Add Brady's  John Kruk Jersey name to the list of such athletes, along with Michael Jordan, with LeBron James, with Muhammad Ali, with all the others who took slights real and imagined and fashioned them into the impetus for sports history.  Brady will be hellbent this season on letting his game and his play talk back to the critics and the haters. Sunday might have been a great game against a terrible team, but it was still guided by an aged quarterback who hadn't gone through his routine in more than a month. This is just the start.In his time-tested, understated, Bill Belichick way, the Patriots  Rhys Hoskins Jersey head coach nailed it when asked for his thoughts on Brady's return:"It's good to have Tom back."Must be. Because even without Brady, as Brady said over and over after the game, this team is now 4-1. And with Brady, they looked every bit like the kind of machine that can beat any team on any given Sunday and that can take another ring from a league that despises them.  Asked about that extra motivation, he clung fiercely to me sage. But I swear, he looked like a man enjoying that he didn't have to say what he felt because he'd done his talking on the field."This isn't a time for me to reflect," he said. "I'm just happy we won today."Here's the thing: That last part's just not true. Sinatra's point about revenge speaks to a deeper fact about people like Sinatra or Brady -- the celebrities who chase truly rarified air. They can be hurt. They can feel wounded. They can burn with rage. No matter how cool their exterior, how slick their brand, how above-the-fray the image they sell, they feel the slights and fury that come with trying to be the best of all time at something and facing the challenges, and challengers, who want to stop them.Brady surely knows that many people, myself included, see him as a cheater. He's human. He must hear the questions in his mind about his legacy and the stain upon it before they're actually asked.  In fact, not long Will Middlebrooks Jersey  after Brady said for the fifth time how happy he was to have won the game, a reporter asked what most of us had been thinking: What do you say to those who would consider Deflategate a stain on your career?"I've just moved on, man," Brady said.There's no way he's just moved on. Which is why the greatest quarterback to ever play the position might be as dangerous as he's ever been.