Pat Patriot
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- Mar 19, 2019
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USA TODAY Sports
It had been known that former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady will return to New England in 2021. The Patriots won’t be slaying the fatted calf for their prodigal son, however; they’ll be hoping to carve up Brady’s Buccaneers instead.
Toward that end, it doesn’t hurt that the Patriots have retained a quarterback who, over the course of his career, has a 2-0 record against Brady.
That’s right, Cam Newton has beaten Brady in a pair of career regular-season games. While this hardly means Newton is guaranteed to get to 3-0, the Patriots desperately needed a competent and viable quarterback option for Brady’s homecoming. Although the Patriots would never admit it, they surely want to beat Brady badly — or, perhaps more importantly, they desperately want to avoid losing to him.
He’s already won round one, capturing a Super Bowl championship in his first post-Pats season, with his 20-year team failing to make the playoffs for only the third time since 2001. Round two is coming in the form of one of the biggest games of the 2021 regular season. The fact that Cam Newton will remain with the Patriots makes the game even bigger, given Newton’s history of success against Brady.
Brady won’t be the only long-time quarterback getting a crack at his former team this year. A trip to Carolina is on the agenda for the Patriots, putting Cam back in Carolina for the first time.