February 7, 2021
Raymond James Stadium — Tampa, Florida
Super Bowl LV
By the time the confetti started falling, the argument had already begun.
It didn't start in Tampa. It didn't even start that night. It started years earlier, every time Felix Bale caught a pass that wasn't supposed to be caught, every time a defender looked back at the replay screen instead of the receiver who'd just beaten him. But Super Bowl Sunday always sharpened the noise. It gave it a deadline.
On television screens across the country, the image repeated itself: silver and red confetti sticking to sweat-soaked jerseys, camera flashes bouncing off the Lombardi Trophy, the familiar sight of Tom Brady standing at the podium again, older now, calmer, holding the same trophy he'd held more times than anyone in the history of the sport.
Lower-thirds ran in bold fonts.
BRADY WINS SEVENTH SUPER BOWL
THE GOAT DEBATE: WHERE DOES FELIX BALE STAND NOW?
Sports radio didn't wait for the postgame interview to end. Phones lit up. Producers waved hosts back from commercial breaks. Someone in New York shouted that rings were rings. Someone in Baltimore shouted back that positions mattered. Someone else brought up Felix Bale's nine Super Bowls, then someone else immediately countered with quarterbacks touching the ball on every snap.
The debate fed itself.
In Baltimore, the night was quiet in a way the city rarely was after a Super Bowl. Most bars had closed early. Some out of disappointment. Some out of exhaustion. Felix Bale wasn't playing that night, and Baltimore felt it, even if no one wanted to admit it out loud.
On the outskirts of the city, in a house set back far enough that street noise never quite reached it, Felix sat alone.
The television in front of him was on.
Muted.
He knew the broadcast well enough to follow it without sound. He recognized the camera angles, the way the producers lingered just long enough on the quarterback before cutting to the crowd. He knew when the applause came. He knew when the reporters leaned forward.
Felix Bale sat with his back straight, shoulders relaxed, hands resting loosely on his thighs. He wore a plain black long-sleeve shirt, no logos, no colors. His phone lay face down on the table beside him. It had been buzzing earlier. It had stopped.
On the screen, Brady lifted the Lombardi Trophy and smiled. Not wide. Not performative. The smile of someone who had done this before and understood what it meant to do it again at forty-three years old.
Felix reached for the remote and turned the sound on.
Brady's voice filled the room, steady and familiar. He thanked his teammates, the coaching staff, his family. He joked lightly when a reporter mentioned age. The crowd laughed when it was supposed to. Applause came in waves.
Then a question came from the side, not shouted, not rehearsed.
"Tom—there's always this narrative that Felix Bale only ever played for money and business. You knew him before any of that. What do you think?"
Felix didn't move.
Brady paused. Not long. Just long enough to think.
"At Michigan," Brady said, "Felix was always the first one up."
The room seemed to shrink slightly around the words.
"Five-thirty in the morning. Dorm was quiet. Weight room empty. He was already there. Every day."
Brady glanced down, then back up.
"And every time he caught one of my passes," he continued, "I saw it. Just for a second. A little sparkle. Joy."
Felix's mouth twitched. Barely.
"He hides it well," Brady added, smiling. "He always has."
A reporter tried to interrupt. Brady raised a hand, polite but firm.
"You outwork someone for a year, that's survival," he said. "Four years? Maybe ambition. But after the money, after the rings, after everything?"
He shrugged.
"If you're still training like your life depends on it… you're doing it because you love it."
Laughter rippled through the crowd. Brady laughed with them.
"I mean—maybe not more than me."
The room in Baltimore stayed quiet.
Felix turned the television off before the applause finished.
He picked up his phone and dialed without checking the contact.
Brady answered almost immediately.
"Seven," Felix said. "Congratulations."
Brady laughed. "I was wondering when you'd call."
"You're old," Felix said. "That was your last season."
"Oh, come on," Brady replied. "I'm just getting warmed up."
Felix leaned back in his chair. "I won."
There was a brief pause on the line, then Brady said it casually, like it was nothing at all.
"I still beat you four times in the Super Bowl, though."
Felix ended the call.
The silence that followed wasn't tense. It was heavy. The kind that pressed against the ribs and reminded you where you were.
Felix stood and walked to the window overlooking the dark stretch of yard behind the house. He inhaled slowly, held it, then let it go. He turned back, picked up the phone again, and dialed.
Brady answered on the first ring.
"That was rude," Brady said.
"Thank you," Felix replied.
There was a longer pause this time.
"For what?" Brady asked.
"For saying it," Felix said. "The way you did."
Brady didn't joke this time.
"Anytime," he said.
Felix hesitated, then added, lighter now, almost dismissive, "Come by tomorrow. I'll tell you my life story."
Brady laughed. "I thought I already knew it."
"You know the football parts," Felix said. "This started earlier."
The next afternoon, Brady drove himself.
No cameras. No announcement. Just a black SUV pulling into the driveway. Felix met him at the door, nodded once, and led him through the house toward the back, where the windows opened out onto the yard.
They didn't sit.
Felix stopped near the center of the room and turned his back slightly, staring out at the glass as if it were easier to speak that way.
Brady leaned against the wall, arms crossed, listening.
Felix's voice, when it came, was low and steady.
"It began years ago," he said. "When I was nine."
Brady didn't interrupt.
Felix took a breath.
And in Baltimore—decades earlier, in the rain—a door was opening.