Brandon Marshall admittedly spent years holding a grudge against former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for a missing game jersey.
When appearing on Julian Edelman and Sam Morril’s Games With Names podcast, the six-time Pro Bowl receiver said he approached Brady after a game with the Patriots and asked to get his game jersey.
“Tom was basically like, ‘Yeah, I can give it to you, but Bill and the guys, they don’t like us exchanging jerseys after the game. I’m going to have to send it to you. I’ll go inside and give it to our equipment manager, and we’ll have it sent to you.’ I was like, ‘Man, I know, but I need the game-worn. Don’t send me no [expletive], Tom,'” said Marshall.
According to Marshall, Brady assured him he’d send his game-worn jersey in the mail. But a significant length of time passed, and Marshall never received the jersey. A week, two weeks and six months went by with Marshall seeing nothing in the mail.
That’s when he started to develop a legitimate grudge against Brady.
“So now I have this grudge against Tom Brady that I’m carrying every single year, year after year after year,” Marshall said. “I got this legendary jersey collection. I’ve got some of the best guys. I’ve got kickers, bro. Most of these guys that ya’ll see with all of these jerseys, I know Arian Foster had this legendary jersey collection that everybody’s talking about. Bro, he don’t have kickers. I’ve got all the great kickers, man. I’ve got everybody.”
Marshall also had the Brady jersey the whole time, but he just didn’t know it yet.
It was only when he decided to go out and look in his garage that he found an unopened box containing the jersey he’d spent years waiting to come in the mail.
“I get to this one big box, and there’s this little FedEx box that’s sitting there,” said Marshall. “I open it up. It was the Tom Brady jersey, and he said, ‘Hey B, you’re a great player. Look forward to seeing you continue to thrive. Tom Brady.’ I said, ‘Oh, my goodness’. I fell in love with the guy. The overall consensus on Tom Brady is beloved.”
It’s a good thing that Marshall looked in his garage, or he might have been carrying that grudge to this very day. But real recognizes real, and Brady obviously recognized Marshall.