Former New England Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes spent four seasons playing with Tom Brady, and during that time, he learned one very important thing about the all-time great quarterback: he doesn't care about Pro Bowls.
Spikes found out about Brady's feelings about Honolulu during his third season with the team. Spikes had a really solid year, finishing with 91 tackles, a sack, four forced fumbles, and six passes defended, so he thought he deserved a Pro Bowl selection.
Unfortunately for Spikes, he didn't get it.
While some of Spikes' teammates tried to cheer him up, Brady was in no such mood:
“I had one of my best years my third season,” Spikes said, according to Robert Klemko of Sports Illustrated. “I'd been playing off the charts. And I didn't get picked to go to the Pro Bowl. I was moping around, actually in tears, and a few guys were trying to lift me up, like, ‘It's gonna be alright man. We've got to worry about what's in front of us.’ Then The Pharaoh himself walks up to me—I used to call Brady The Pharoah and he hated that—Brady walks up to me and says, ‘Hey B, you think I play this (expletive) to go to Pro Bowls? Get it together. Get your head up. We're trying to win rings. That's what it is here.’ That's where I knew what kind of environment I was in, how blessed I was.”
Spikes ended up playing six years in the NFL between the Patriots and the Buffalo Bills, but never made a Pro Bowl.
Something tells me that after that conversation with Brady, the linebacker didn't care as much.