This week's New England Patriots game will have all the hoopla surrounding it, and part it won't even be about the football being played on the field. It's the first time that Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback and Patriots Hall of Famer, will be part of the team's broadcast. The now-FOX Sports analyst has made it this far without calling his former team's games and that changes this weekend.

Until this week. As the Patriots prepare for the Green Bay Packers, the legendary Brady is set to return to the stadium where he became an icon and where a statue of him stands right outside one of the entrances.

"It’ll certainly be emotional," Brady said to FOX's Colin Cowherd this week. "To be back there and to really understand what that Patriot organization is all about and to convey that to the fans in a way where I’m not talking about myself, but I’m really talking about this awesome program that’s been built — the Patriots just always seem to do things the right way."

Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, who played eight years alongside Brady and won three Super Bowl, didn't have the same emotional response when asked about his teammate's return.

"I think I'm required contractually to catch up with him at some point. I'm sure it'll be a Zoom. I'm sure they won't show up here. I'm sure it will be on Zoom," Vrabel said Wednesday, a bit tongue in cheek. "Contractually I'll be talking to him, and I'm sure I'll see him at Gronk's (Rob Gronkowski) induction on Saturday."

Somehow, Brady has evaded calling games since taking over the top analyst role for FOX in 2024. He was reportedly supposed to call a game that season, but because of New England's struggles under new head coach Jerod Mayo, FOX took their No. 1 crew off that game.

He's been back twice since retiring as a player. Once at his Patriots Hall of Fame induction ceremony inside the stadium and then again one year later when the team unveiled his statue. He hasn't been back as much as some fans might have liked (part of that is just because of his minority ownership stake with the Las Vegas Raiders). It's truly a changing of the guards.

Yes, Brady's statue is outside on the concourse and his plaque hangs in the adjacent Hall of Fame museum. But this isn't Brady's Patriots anymore. His stamp still reverberates around the area, but that's in the past — and his status as a broadcaster doesn't have that large of an impact on the current quarterback.

"Yeah, it's obviously cool. What a legend to come back here, and it's definitely cool for him, I bet, to come back and call a game in the stadium where he won so many games and was a legend in this stadium," Drake Maye said. "Really, him, the fans and their teams built Gillette into what it is now. So, I bet it's cool for him.

"It really doesn't affect me much. You talk to him, and I'm not even sure we're allowed to talk to him in production because he's with the Raiders. But it's always cool to see. You don't hear much back from the TV copies. You don't really watch much of my own TV copies unless it's little things of, if I said anything that I think could hurt us. But really other than that, I know he hangs out around the field sometimes, so you just try to go appreciate him for what he left here, and that's really about it."

Similar to Maye, the Patriots players inside the locker room don't really have much to say about who'll be calling the game. They're more focused on the task at hand, and this week, it's the Packers.

Nobody on the current roster played with Brady when he was with the Patriots. In fact, other than Vrabel, only one active player suited up alongside Brady during his NFL career.

"I did have somewhat of a relationship with him. He was a mentor to a lot of the guys on the team, especially on the recovery aspect," Carlton Davis, who played with Brady and won Super Bowl LV with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, told Patriots On SI.

Brady's comments from the broadcast booth won't impact how well the Patriots perform. But considering he'll be back inside Gillette Stadium for a football game for the first time since 2021, this weekend should be a fun one for everyone involved.

Practice squad linebacker Benton Whitley — a Springfield native — can now appreciate just how special Brady and the entire Super Bowl LI team that's being honored pregame was as a fan growing up.

"I remember taking it for granted, honestly," he told Patriots On SI. "It would be a thing where me and my boys would be like 'Oh, are you going to the Super Bowl parade this year?' and then we'd be like 'Nah, we're going to the next one.' But being in the league now, I started to understand how actually hard it is to get to the postseason and then be the winner. ...

"He's arguably the greatest football player of all time."