Tom Brady says he gets why other NFL fans don't like him

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“Part of being a professional athlete is you’re dealing with lots of different things, and lots of criticisms,” Tom Brady said in his Tuesday morning interview with WEEI’s Kirk and Callahan.

When asked about why he thinks other NFL fans don’t like him or his team, the New England Patriots quarterback offered up a couple of theories to explain the situation.

First off, you can’t please everyone, and Brady gets that.

“Obviously, you have a lot of people that support you, but you also have a lot of people that kind of cheer for the other teams,” Brady said. “If you don’t come to grips with that, then you’re in the wrong profession.”

“I mean, I was a 49ers fan at one point. But they’re just – they want to see their team win. And when they don’t, I think they’ve got to direct that frustration somewhere else. When you’ve been successful like our team’s been, I think the frustration gets directed at us. That’s just part of it. You just have to understand that’s what you’re getting into.”

Brady also made a point that the NFL doesn’t have an international competition. Therefore, other teams’ fans have no instances where they would want to or be able to cheer for Brady. NBA players have the US National Team at the Summer Olympics; NHL players have the Winter Olympics; MLB players have the World Baseball Classic; and so on and so forth.

“I think it’s a different part about football, for example, in America,” Brady said. “I mean, if you look at a lot of other sports around the world, at some point, maybe you get to represent your country, like watching the World Cup in the summer.”

“I see all these soccer players that play for these different clubs but then come together for their country at some point. In America, we never get a chance to do that. So, most Americans that live in other parts of the country, they don’t like the Patriots. They don’t like me, and I can understand that.”

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