New England Patriots

Check out the banner the Patriots would have raised if Brady wasn’t playing

Four-time champ, three-time MVP Tom Brady would have been honored with a banner-raising Thursday night had he not been able to play. Tannen Maury/EPA

No Brady, No Banner.’’

Such was the rallying cry of the Gillette Stadium faithful after the NFL announced it had suspended its most accomplished player, Tom Brady, for the first four games of the NFL season.

Fortunately, they have their man on day one. But if they hadn’t, Robert Kraft revealed in an interview Thursday, the team would have raised a different banner in lieu of the one commemorating Super Bowl XLIX.

“I’m going to give you a little secret,’’ Kraft told Sky Sports, per the Boston Herald. “So if you look up there, you’ll see our Super Bowl banners, ‘01, ‘03, ‘04 and that fourth banner. If Brady weren’t playing, that would have been his shirt with Super Bowl MVP three times. We wouldn’t have unveiled our 2014 banner.’’

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According to NFL Network’s Melissa Stark, here’s the banner the Patriots would have raised:

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And attendees of Thursday’s game game will get a miniature copy of the banner, Kraft said in the same interview.

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