Brady Says His Concussions are Nobody's Business But His
Tom Brady on the concussion question:
“I don’t want to get into things that happened in my past, certainly medical history and so forth, I really don’t think that’s anybody’s business. You know, what happened last year. I’m just focused on this year and improvement and working on the things I need to get better at.
“I’m not worried about what happened last year or five years ago. There’s people that do worry about that. My wife, my parents, my sisters, people that love me and care about me. But I do the best I can do to come out and be prepared to play mentally and physically and give the game everything I have.”
One of the most popular sports in New England is speculating about what Brady is going to do once his playing days are over. Is he going to focus on his TB12 sports fitness business? Charity work? Start other businesses? Get into politics maybe? I’m sticking with my own personal choice. Which is that he’ll leave his corporeal body, evolve into a form of pure energy, enter the body of a lowly regarded college senior quarterback in order to get drafted by the Patriots again in the late rounds to play 20 more seasons. I don’t that’s at all unreasonable.
But maybe somewhere in there he can take a stab at public relations. Or communications. Image consulting. Whatever they’re calling it now when you’re telling people how to handle themselves in the public eye. Because this was the perfect way to handle the mess Gisele created when she spilled the beans about his concussions on the CBS morning show.
This is the right message delivered with exactly the right tone. In a Reality TV/social media world where everyone thinks they have an inalienable right to know everything about everyone, Brady pours us a giant, travel mug-sized cup of piping hot None of Your Fucking Business. And he does it with a smile. No hostility toward the reporters who have to ask. He doesn’t make enemies or come across as a dick. If the Pats convened a Baltimore Ravens-style focus group to ask fans what they’re feeling as Brady gives the press the back of his hand here, it’d be 100 percent positive. If you don’t really listen closely to his words, you’d never know he was basically telling Mike Reiss to piss off.
But at the same time, and more importantly, he didn’t say anything that will get him in the weeds with Gisele. Unless you’re talking to guys you trust with your lives and know nothing will ever get back to your wife, there is no right way to say she’s wrong about anything. And if you say it in public, it’ll create a Category 5 tropical shitstorm that FEMA can’t save you from. And that goes for any marriage, not just the kind where you’re the second richest person wearing ceramic-print PJs in your bed.
So well played by Brady. He managed to shut down the question. Made it clear he won’t talk about it. Killed whatever controversy might arise out of this. And at the same time worked in shouts to all his loved ones. That’s why he’s a pros pro when it comes to handling his public image.
And the final takeaway is that with this non-denial denial, we can assume he did play through a concussion last year. While going 11-1 with 28 TDs and 2 INTs and winning the Super Bowl on 43 completions and 466 yards. How they’re going to stop him this year now that he’s recovered is everybody’s business.