Patriots great Brady stays grounded in Super Bowl pressure cooker: Arthur
CHANDLER, ARIZ.—The scenery on the last road to the New England Patriots hotel this week looked like a movie set, maybe for an old Western. It wound through carefully placed cactuses, dry bushes and desert trees, a sandy dirt that looks both brushed and a little too brown. At the end of the road were the Patriots and their gunfighter, Tom Brady, 37. This is his sixth Super Bowl, and he has lost twice in the past decade. It will end eventually, but not yet.
“Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever imagined this,” Brady said this week. “In a lot of ways, I still feel like I’m still trying to earn it. I still feel like this is my first game. That’s really where the motivation has been from the start of my career until now, and I want to be great for this team on Sunday.
“I didn’t realize how hard it was (to get here) . . . We went into those (Super Bowl losses) with a lot of confidence, too. You rack your brain for all the things that you could have done better to help the team: if I made this read, if I made a throw here on this play, you know. That’s what you deal with for the rest of your life.”
Brady’s football life has been extraordinary, and the story is both well-worn and has been buried. He’s had so much success, has led such a charmed life, that it’s easy to forget the chubby kid, the sixth-round pick, the guy that then-starter Drew Bledsoe thought would hang around the NFL for a decade on his enthusiasm, but never as a starter, not with that arm and those slow feet. Brady started reminiscing this week, starting an answer with “I wasn’t born for this. I wasn’t born for this . . .” before realizing where he was going, and seamlessly transitioning into another paean to his teammates.
The last time he was in a Super Bowl Brady took a long time to dress afterwards, such a long time, and his wife Gisele pushed through a crowd of media to comfort him, and he looked gutted. He said, “I’d rather come to this game and lose than not get here.” Three years older, Brady spent this week fighting a cold that he thinks he got from his kids, because the whole family was sick too. He probably can’t express what this game really means to him, or at least, won’t. “It would mean an awful lot,” was about as far as he would go this week. He knows this won’t last forever.
Every long profile of Brady — and there have been more of late, despite New England’s general hostility to the media, in ESPN The Magazine, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times Magazine — reveals something about him. He has his schedule planned out years in advance, like a president. He rigorously controls his diet, his treatment, his every moment. He wants to play until he is . . . what, 43? 44?
And that is where the tension comes in. Brady has spent a lifetime with Bill Belichick; they are the only two pieces that have been here from the beginning of this. They have endured, together.
“I think the biggest thing is the understanding they both have for one another,” says Vince Wilfork, the Patriots defensive tackle who is the only other player left from New England’s last Super Bowl-winning team. “Sometimes it may get a little chippy when someone may want something and the other one may want something, but they always seem to come to the right solution. And they look at a lot of film. When you have two guys at that level, they have to be on the same page for our team to work. For the most part, we’ve been on the same page.”
The marriage will end, eventually. Belichick is the least sentimental coach in this unsentimental league. Belichick cut a 29-year-old Bernie Kosar in Cleveland in 1993 after clashes over play-calling and deteriorating skills; Kosar was beloved, and Browns owner Art Modell almost considered him a son. Methodically, sometimes before it was time, the Patriots have parted ways with Ty Law, Mike Vrabel, Randy Moss, Willie McGinest, Richard Seymour, Wes Welker, Adam Vinatieri, Logan Mankins, more.
There are only small frictions, little signs. When Belichick gave that now-famous quote after getting blown out by Kansas City — “we’re onto Cincinnati” — it was in response to a question about whether the quarterback position would be evaluated. When Jimmy Garoppolo was drafted in the second round of the draft, Belichick said, “We know what Tom’s age and contract situation is.”
Brady recently restructured that contract to free up cash for New England, but will receive the $24 million he had guaranteed if he’s still on the team in 2017, at age 40. The Patriots can also release Brady with virtually no liability now, if it comes to that. It is a risk, in theory. A journalist who has delved into the New England organization noted that Brady could be cut any time; it could happen this year. That would be crazy, he was told. It would be pretty Patriots-y too, he said.
“When you’re around guys and play with guys for 10, 15 years, that’s family,” says Patriots receiver Brandon LaFell. “Like, growing up with a brother or sister, you probably got into it with him every day, but at the end of the day that’s love right there. You’re going to take what your brother says, and you’re going to listen, but can’t nobody talk about your brother.
“When it’s true family, it never ends. Even though these guys gonna stop coaching one day, and Brady’s going to stop playing, it never ends. You could probably could say it’s a small percentage of players who get to choose how they walk away from this game, or when they walk away from this game. I feel like both of those guys deserve the chance to do it.”
Except in family, nobody gets cut. Brady has to be great every year, because the year he isn’t, he could be gone. He knows. Everybody knows. He is driven like few others, and his teammates remain in awe of how much he gives to this.
“It’s unbelievable to see,” says receiver Julian Edelman. “What is he, 40, 42? And he still has a quarterback coach come out and coach him up all the time. He’s always working on his fundamentals.”
He’s still an elite quarterback, but the history of elite quarterbacks at 37 shows the drop can come at any time.
“I’m just trying to just focus on how I can help the team, and doing my job and doing it the best I possibly can,” said Brady. “Those types of questions come up this time of year, and I am later on in my career. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish, and I hope the best is yet to come. But we’ve got to earn it.”
Asked if Belichick was a father figure, he said, “Not quite like a father. He’s more of a coach. You know, he’s tough. He has high expectations, he expects a high level every day, and when it’s anything less than your best, he lets you know.”
“Everyone’s replaceable in this game,” says Seattle offensive lineman Russell Okung. “Peyton Manning was replaceable. You know that everybody has their time, and you try to enjoy it while you can.”
“I don’t think there will ever be any drop in his desire,” says Patriots special teams ace Matthew Slater, who has been with New England since 2008. “That man’s a competitor, and he loves this game. I’m sure he’ll love it until it’s time for him to leave this earth.
“(But) this is a competitive league. It’s the responsibility of the coaches and general managers in this league to put the football team on the field that has the best chance to win. Whether that’s a 35-year-old, or a 21-year-old. Whoever gives them the best chance to win is going to be there.”
Everything ends, and in football it’s hard to end well. In a recent New York Times Magazine profile by Mark Leibovich, Brady’s father Tom Sr. predicted as much.
“It will end badly,” Brady Sr. said. “It does end badly. And I know that because I know what Tommy wants to do. He wants to play till he’s 70.” In 2013, Tom Sr. told ESPN The Magazine’s Seth Wickersham that as soon as Belichick finds “a quarterback who is better for a dollar less, he’ll be gone.”
The challenge for Tom Brady isn’t just Sunday, and the slavering Seahawks defence. It’s every day from here, every hour he can endure, every play. He’s a New England Patriot, and that means that even Tom Brady, perhaps the greatest quarterback we have ever seen, is worth it until he is not. Let’s see how far that chubby kid can go.
