New England Patriots: Step right up, the Tom Brady circus is coming to town

Step right up ladies and gentlemen, get your tickets to the greatest show in the NFL. The Tom Brady circus is coming to New England Patriots town.

All the preliminaries are over. They haven’t been very positive for the home side. Yet, that notwithstanding, it’s time for the big show under the big lights at Gillette Stadium this Sunday night.

And watch the media frenzy over this one. It will make Spygate look like a buried story in the middle of a newspaper (if we still had them) before the funnies.

A New England Patriots, Belichick vs. Brady circus for the ages on Sunday

Now that the first three games are out of the way, here comes the main event. This will be bigger than Leonard vs. Duran; Hagler/Hearns; or, Tyson Fury vs. Deonte Wilder. The biggest of the big.

If I were a betting man, I bet this game gets more hype than the Super Bowl that happens in early February. The drama. The storylines.

The absolute tub full of hogwash that will be served up will be colossal. How colossal? The Circus Maximus colossal.

That was the ancient Roman stadium where they held chariot races for 200,000 people or so,  among other spectacles. Those events had nothing on this extravaganza.

Mr. Robert Kraft, who reportedly allowed his own club’s all-time best player to leave (how’d that work out for you, Mr. Kraft?), will wish he had a stadium as big as the Circus Maximus for this tilt.

He’d have filled every seat with fans who love the Patriots, fans who still love Brady, and of course, with thousands of media types searching for any angle or new slant on this story.

They won’t just need an old press box to house this coterie of media, they’d need an adjacent stadium to hold all these people. Maybe Kraft will charge them an entrance fee too.

This circus will have more storylines than the canals on Mars were supposed to have. It’s going to be interesting to see them all.

Brady vs. Belichick, aka the New England Patriots

Can’t wait for the articles like: “Belichick’s dog, Viking, who drafts for the New England Patriots hates Tom Brady and bit his photo!”. And maybe this one, “Brady’s cat hissed at the TV at the Patriots’ Bill Belichick!”

The possibilities are endless, and don’t think that there won’t be endless hashes and rehashes of this titanic clash anywhere and everywhere one can write, film, or use social media about it.

This is a once-in-a-century battle royal anyone and everyone will try to get in on. (Oh, I guess I’m doing that now myself. Oh well.)

It will be interesting to see all the dirt anyone named Brady can muster and fling at anyone named Belichick.

This Sunday circus will be like Family Feud. Too bad we can’t get Steve Harvey on the line for his take on this one.

Maybe some inventive TV or radio talk show host will call Steve. I would. The Bradys vs. the Belichicks. It’s a natural.

In the actual game, we’ll see all the defensive wrinkles that Belichick can dream up (there sure ain’t none of those on the 44-year-old Brady’s face who Belichick thought was washed up) to flummox Brady.

Good luck with that, Bill. You couldn’t even beat the New Orleans Saints or the Miami Dolphins. He’s seen ’em all and knows them all.

Unless there’s some miracle at Foxborough, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will pummel the Patriots and leave Gillette with another easy notch in their belts on the way to a repeat Super Bowl win.

And get this, some clownish writer even predicted that Mac Jones will beat Brady Sunday night. And that the Patriots would win the Super Bowl!

Oh brother. This guy will be eating crow on that one. Indeed! Not that he hasn’t in the past. In fact, they say he’s eaten so much he’s actually growing fond of the bird. Go figure.

Compared to this duel, Brady vs. Belichick, the old rivalries like Frazier vs. Ali, Red Sox vs. Yankees (sorry to bring up that painful subject now), and even the Hatfields vs. the McCoys pale in comparison.

All the animosity of a messy divorce, a lousy separation, or a jilted partner will be evident in this tilt Sunday night.

We can expect a media circus this week everywhere and on every media outlet you can think of. Wonder if someone will rent a plane and tow a banner behind it to commemorate it? Just a thought.

This is it. The big game. The disinherited oldest son of the New England Patriots, Tom Brady comes striding into town wearing the red and gold colors of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

He also has a seventh Super Bowl ring to wear if he please as his new club, not the home team is the reigning Super Bowl Champions.

What a story. What an event. It will be a circus indeed. Too bad Gillette doesn’t have a dome, it could be held under “the big top” just like the old Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circuses.

So that’s it, friends, a prelude, call it a warning if you like, before the media circus that awaits us all this week and after.

Rest assured, the aftermath ain’t gonna be pretty for the New England Patriots and the team’s millions of fans in the region.

It’s not going to be a pretty sight at all when the franchise’s and the NFL’s all-time best comes home to obliterate his former team. Oh, what might still have been.

We (and the NFL) haven’t ever seen anything like it before and likely never will again. Now if only Mr. Kraft can waltz in a line of elephants before kick-off, it would make the spectacle complete.