The Trailer for '80 for Brady' is Here and it's Everything You've Imagined it Would Be

Kevin Dietsch. Shutterstock Images.

On thing Patriots fans like myself - and there are others like me; Old Balls isn't just an individual, it's a state of mind - loved and admired most about Tom Brady's two decades upon the throne is how much he sacrificed for the greater good. For the sake of us and team success, he gave up incalculable hours putting in extra work. Stopped drinking. Ate famously weirdo foods. Rarely went out in public. Unless it was appearances on behalf of Best Buddies and his other charities. And of course, left millions of dollars on the table in order to maintain a Super Bowl-quality roster around him, year after year. 

Another, less recognized sacrifice me made for years was suppressing his own desire to branch out and do different things with his free time. Side projects. Business ventures. Promoting his own brand. One of the surest signs he was no longer willing to buy into Bill Belichick's culture of controlling the message off the field in order to keep the focus on team goals, was the way he took on more and more side hustles. TB 12 Fitness. A book on his diet and training methods. A clothing line. Producing the documentary series Tom vs. Time, a behind-the-scenes look into his 2017 season. Filmed by the film production company he himself co-created. 

Which brings us to the latest project of that production company, which was announced back in July.

And finally, we have our first glimpse. Which is, really, really … um, something:

I … I just … have no words. I'm struck dumb. As Egon Spengler put it, I'm beyond the capacity for rational thought. But I can't just stop here and call it a blog. So I'll try to rally and finish this thing. 

What exactly was the inspiration behind this? Who greenlit it? What was the Elevator Pitch? 

It's about Tom Brady winning that Super Bowl against the Falcons. 

Great, great. That was an incredible moment! So it'll be like a football version of Miracle?

Not exactly, it's also a road trip comedy. 

Like The Hangover? Good, good! People love buddy comedies!

Not quite. This will be a group of women. Who all have crushes on Brady. 

Got it. So kind of like Bridesmaids!

Definitely not. Think The Golden Girls. 

I mean, who exactly is the audience for this? At the risk of sounding ageist there a huge public demand for more movies starring the Mount Rushmore of Oscar nominees of the 1960s and '70s? If there is, and you drew a Venn Diagram with that audience in one circle and huge fans of the 2017 Patriots in the other, how many people are in that overlapping subset? A dozen? 

And if that does sound ageist, check out the trailer itself. Is there an offensive stereotype of wacky old bags this movie isn't mining for comedy gold? Old ladies are horny! Old ladies trying to dance! Old ladies wear fanny packs and call them "strap ons!" Old ladies accidentally take gummies! It's like the script comes from someone who was inspired to get into screenwriting by the Rapping Granny from The Wedding Singer.

But whatever. I could be wrong. Maybe this will be the greatest American sports comedy ever. Perhaps it will be Slap Shot times Bad News Bears to the power of Caddyshack. And will find an audience bigger than Avengers: Endgame and Brady will be the next great Hollywood mogul. 

But still, this is further evidence that he has changed since he left New England. Or perhaps that he always wanted to do stuff like this. Weird vanity projects that would never have gotten made if he didn't own the production company. And therefore he had to leave New England in order to have the creative freedom needed to finally get the Sally Field, Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda sexy granny, road trip, sports movie buddy comedy off the ground. Good luck with it. He's gonna need it.