Three days after his New England Patriots lost to the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship, Tom Brady posted a note to his Facebook page thanking New England fans for supporting the team.

Here’s the full text of the note:

Thank you to all of our fans for the incredible support you gave us this season. I’m proud to call New England my home and to have the privilege of playing for your team.

Our team fought hard all year, right down to the final play. I’m proud of the effort we all put in to prepare each game as if it were our last. We never quit nor lost sight of what we were playing for. It’s rare to have the honor of being on a team like that.

It takes a lot of hard work and commitment to get as far as we did. Our goal every season is to win the last game, but as I’ve learned, the road to the next one is paved by seasons like this one.

Thanks again,

Yours truly, Tom

This was supposed to be a big season for the Patriots, who, in the wake of the DeflateGate controversy, were going to flip off the world and storm to a second straight Super Bowl victory. But injuries hindered Bill Belichick’s team during the regular season, with two losses at the end of the season costing them the top seed in the AFC playoffs, and the Pats ultimately lost to Denver thanks a missed extra point and horrific play from a depleted offensive line. If this weren’t the Patriots, you would almost feel bad for them.

Anyway, nice note from Brady, who is naturally getting all kinds of applause for a fairly mundane expression of gratitude. *Handwritten! Can you believe it? He wrote this letter with his own hand instead of typing it! What a guy!* For someone who spent most of the first half of the year being trashed over the silliest controversy of all-time, Brady still seems to get lavishly praised for everything he does.

He does have solid handwriting though, so we’ll give him that.

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.