Bedard: Like Favre and Packers, watching Brady return to face Patriots will be a surreal experience

It's not going to be that big a deal, you're probably telling yourself.

Tom Brady has already played an entire season with the Buccaneers, played four playoff games, won a Super Bowl. You probably watched most of those games.

How could this be any different? It's Brady and the Bucs. That's not new. They just happen to be playing the Patriots at Gillette Stadium.

Sure, the whole Brady-Bill Belichick-Robert Kraft amps up the stakes a little bit, but the media has completely overblown this. Right?

Wrong.

It's going to be a game, especially for those who are there, that is unlike any other game you have ever experienced.

I know, because I've been to one of these games, two to be exact:

Brett Favre, as a Minnesota Viking, going back to Lambeau Field to take on the Packers.

It's not exactly the same — Favre purposely worked his way to the rival Vikings to stick to the Packers, and his first matchup was actually at the Metrodome — but there are so many similarities.

Favre was a multiple-MVP winner who led the Packers from the depths of the NFL to one of the most respected franchises. He won a Super Bowl, and was responsible for the renovation of Lambeau Field that is now its own megaplex.

Brady is a multiple-MVP winner who led the Patriots from the depths of the NFL to one of the most respected and feared franchises. He won six Super Bowls there, and was responsible, due to his popularity, the team being able to build a moneymaker like Patriot Place.

Both were there so long and fans knew many personal details of both — Favre with his addiction issues, family tragedies, wife battling breast cancer; Brady's accident, raising a family, mother's battle with breast cancer — both Favre and Brady basically felt like extended family members to fans of those teams. Not only had they supported those players, but they felt like they, at times, helped to uplift each player). 

These were franchise icons, who left on bad terms and came back to the mindset of destroying their former teams (trust me, Brady would like to hang a 50-burger on the Patriots). 

In the middle, were the fans. And they didn't realize how much so, until the game actually arrived.

First of all, I have never experienced another gameday atmosphere like that first game at Lambeau. I've covered a lot of big games, but this was unlike anything else. It was a mix of excitement, anxiety, depression, confusion, hatred — everything. But it was intense. You could feel it.

And then, once Favre took the field for warm-ups, everything ramped up.

I distinctly remember the sight of Favre, in a Vikings uniform, running out of that little tunnel in the end zone. And being jolted, not by the incredible boos rained down on Favre by Packers fans, but the impact it had to have on Packers fans. I think most of the boos came because the fans really didn't know what to do. Even team-over-Favre people like my friend Aaron Nagler, a lifelong Packers fan and co-founder of CheeseheadTV.com, who was there that day, were as conflicted as anyone when the actual moment came.

"We had gotten used to him in the Jets colors for the one year but then you see him in the Vikings outfit and you're just like, 'What is going on?'" Nagler said. "I distinctly remember being surprised at how loud and often he was booed in Lambeau, and I don't expect Tom Brady gets that kind of treatment on Sunday night, but obviously the Vikings part of it plays into that.

"It was emotional in a way I was not prepared for, probably. I wrote a piece about how Favre will always be a Packer, but right now he's on the other side and it's like your big brother, right? It's a guy you love, you had a lot of connection to. Obviously he's playing for somebody else now, you want to beat him in those minutes that he's on the grass facing off against your team. You're hoping that one of your guys, one of your outside linebackers or a safety blitz gets him right and just knocks him in the dirt. That's what you're hoping for. But, god, man it was so emotional to see him playing and playing well, that first year, especially in Minnesota — remember that season was basically his best statistical season he'd ever had in the NFL — very much thumbing his nose at the Packers.

"I just remember feeling so conflicted about this guy. Like you said, he was the quarterback that really kind of brought the Packers out of the depths of hell, the NFL version of hell anyway. And really, put them on the map, put them on his back, dragged them to a Super Bowl and formed my fandom in a big, big way. And to see him have that success in another uniform, let alone a hated rival ... yeah, it was it brought up a lot of emotions that I didn't expect.

"I'm sure Patriots fans right now are sitting there thinking, 'Yeah, you know, he's playing for the Bucs, won Super Bowl, whatever...' But the guy wanted out. He wanted out from your favorite team, and I think that's going to be the thing that's going to be weird for Patriots fans on Sunday night, watching him in Foxborough in the place that he helped build. That's going to be a surreal experience, I would suspect."

The other factor that Nagler and other Packers fans in attendance weren't prepared for was just watching Favre interact with his teammates on the sideline.

Basically, it was like being divorced. You know your ex has moved on and was dating, you might have even seen them in public together, and that was awkward. 

This was like seeing your ex make out with their new significant other ... in your house, where you had so many memories together.

"I remember going back and watching the television copy after I got home and thinking how so little of this got captured," Nagler said. "In the building ... the camaraderie he had with his teammates, is what kind of blew my mind. Of course, it happens. Of course, yes, you go to a new team and you ingratiate yourself to your teammates and we've seen plenty of evidence of that, with Tom down at Tampa. ... But as a Patriots fan, it's just gonna be bizarre to sit there and watch him on the opposing sideline, having those moments with guys who aren't on your team. It's just ... it's hard to describe but I'll never forget, Favre having those great, fun times with Jared Allen of all people. It was so surreal, it was such a mind-bender. And there were so many of those moments, just like slapping guys on the ass or giving a guy a high five or running down and celebrating a touchdown in Lambeau against the Packers. It was just absolutely a kind of an out-of-body experience."

Nagler and I both agreed that NBC knocked it out of the park with the Adele promo. If this made you get all the feels, Sunday night in the building will be a whole other level.

"It captures the feeling, that's for damn sure," Nagler said. "It's a pretty great encapsulation of this idea of getting out, and then kind getting a hello from someone, you know, that, that you knew intimately. Yeah, that I think that pretty much nailed it, hit it on the head emotionally, no question about it."

Sunday night is going to be hard for the fans, without question. More than you know right now. It's probably going to hurt, a lot. And that will linger for days after this, and probably will until Brady hangs them up for good, or the Patriots start to play better and it's clear Mac Jones is the successor.

But keep this in mind: what transpires on the field during those four hours has nothing to do with you, the fans. It has to do with two, three if you included Robert Kraft, supersized egos trying to vindicate decisions each has made to make us arrive at this point. It's part of what has made them great for so long — almost exclusively together — but it also reveals their vulnerabilities.

But remember that in due time — hopefully, sooner rather than later — all will be quashed, there will be many regrets from both Brady and Belichick for how things have gone down, and they'll remember and celebrate all the great years they had together.

And all will be whole again in Patriots Nation.

Sunday Night will be a footnote — a very painful one — when the book is written on this glorious Patriots dynasty for good.

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(If you want a taste of what this will be like, I recommend Last Day At Lambeau — yes I'm in there — and the matchups between Favre and the Packers start about an hour in.)