FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Tom Brady had come seeking normalcy, seeking comfort through control, seeking three hours when victory or defeat would rest, in part, on his ability to throw a football, not of his lawyer to win over a federal judge.
His lawyer was here, of course. Jeffrey Kessler came to the NFL opener like some conquering hero and joined in the celebration that everyone else arrived here for – something akin to a religious revival. Outside forces, the thinking went, had tried to take the New England Patriots down, had tried to denounce the greatest Patriot of them all.