Thank you Tommy.
This is two days late and several dollars short, (a phrase my creditors are intimately familiar with), but now that I finally have a few free minutes, I want to very briefly address the big sports news of the week.
Tom Brady has retired, for good this time (his words).
Everyone knows Tom Brady’s story. Benched in college, 6th round pick, 4th-string QB in the NFL who goes on to win more Super Bowls himself than any FRANCHISE in the history of the league. Tom Brady, the individual, is the most winningest franchise in football. That’s stupid.
He’s had three separate Hall of Fame careers. Stupid.
He’s the only man to ever get hotter as he progresses from his 20s to his 40s. Fucking STUPID.
He’s not human. He’s some sort of half-man, half-diety that seemingly can’t die *chops down the tallest oak in the woods just to knock on its stump*
Of course I’ve spoken about Brady on this blog before. I’ve mentioned how I had his picture up in three separate spots in my old room. Not like my childhood bedroom — I’m talking about my adult apartment. I was 25 years old.
But seriously, he was and still is an icon to me. My parents/grandparents are my biggest heroes in life. After them, it’s Tom Brady.
So in lieu of Phone it in Friday this week, I wanted to take a few moments to share what Tommy meant to me and to an entire region for 20+ years. I’ll try to pepper some jokes in here and there, but this blog will mostly be my sincere reflection on the greatest QB to ever live. Patriots fans, get your tissues ready. Patriots haters, get your puke bucket ready.
I woke up at 10AM on Wednesday morning (unemployed) from a dream where I was, fittingly, playing football. Granted I was playing football against aliens on some sort of active volcanic mountain, but football nonetheless.
Turning over, I checked my phone in hopes that a girl or friend had texted me. They hadn’t. However, my family chat was blowing up. And once my brain adjusted from it’s melatonin-induced psychedelic dream state, it became clear what the conversation was about. Tommy was hanging ‘em up.
It was jarring, though not overly shocking. With his premature retirement announcement this time last year, I had grown used to the idea of Brady retiring. But still, listening to his announcement video and hearing the slight quiver in his voice, I’m not ashamed to admit that tears came to my eyes.
Candidly, I was somewhat surprised by my own emotion. I work so hard at keeping it repressed and maintaining an ironic sense of detachment, that it’s always strange when a bit of humanity manages to seep out.
On the one hand, Tom has long since moved on from New England. He’s been a Buc for a few years, and he no longer dominates my every waking thought/phone background during football season. But on the other hand, he was our QB for 20 years. He’s all I knew and someone I loved just as I would a member of my own family. He was a constant in my life. Every fall, I knew I had Tom Brady and exemplary football to watch. And then, a few falls ago, he was gone. And that leaves a void.
I compare it to a divorce where you still love the person, but know that it won’t work as a relationship anymore. You don’t hold grudges or resent each other. You want to see them be successful and happy with someone else, even if it will kill you a little bit inside. It’s a level of maturity that I will never apply to my actual relationships.
My long-winded analogies aside, Tom Brady meant something very profound to me and the entire region of New England. He represented hope.
Hope that no matter what anyone says about you, you can define your own limitations.
Hope that you can get dealt a shitty hand and still find a way to win the pot.
Hope that you can run a 5.2 second 40-yard dash and look like the gazelle at the back of the pack that’s definitely going to get eaten, and STILL be considered one of the greatest athletes of all time.
It’s pithy but Tom Brady is proof that you can have near total control over how far you make it in life. As long as you have even a touch of talent, you can outwork, and out-desire your way to nearly anything. Unless you’re near-sighted and want to be an astronaut. Pretty sure that’s a dealbreaker. And like a no-armed lumberjack is probably out of the question. But weird exceptions aside, it’s possible to make it in just about any field.
This is all stream of consciousness and I can feel myself starting to ramble so let me condense it down to this:
I love Tom Brady. Always have, always will.
He gave me some of the biggest moments of pure joy and elation that I will ever experience.
There were times when I wasn’t doing so well personally and Tom Brady brought me happiness and peace when not much else in this world did.
And look, I know sports don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Honestly, nothing really matters in the grand scheme of things. But Tom Brady matters to me and to an entire generation of kids who grew up idolizing a pure winner.
A guy who was told he wasn’t good enough a million times and just kept pushing.
Someone who at no point in his career was the most talented football player at his position, but still ended up outworking those ahead of him.
A man who was able to put an entire region on his back and spark two decades of sports excellence that made us proud to be New Englanders.
A man whom I will name my son after if I’m so lucky to have the opportunity.
A man who gave us 6 titles and showed that the game ain’t over until there are four zeroes on the clock. That man will always hold a very special place in my heart.
So to my childhood hero, the man everyone counted out, the comeback kid, the guy who gave us everything he had for 20+ years, and to the greatest fucking quarterback that will ever live, I say, thank you Tommy. Happy retirement.
What’s next for Tom Brady?
The way I see it, Tom Brady has several options for his next move. We know he’s got a broadcasting gig lined up that will somehow pay him more than his entire football career, but beyond that here’s a few things I’d like to see happen:
1. Sign a one-day contract to retire a Patriot/commission a statue of himself
BIG one-day contract guy. Would be nice for Tommy to go off into the sunset as a Patriot. I would also love for them to have a Tom Brady statue built outside Gillette Stadium that really takes care to accentuate his crotch bulge. Where’s that MLK dick statue guy at?
2. Get Giselle back rom-com style
People forget, Brady loved the game of football so much that he chose it over his marriage. Some people would say that’s ridiculous, but I truly respect the hell out of it. Dude was literally married to the game — that’s the ultimate competitor. His kind shall never be seen again.
But I think if he wants Giselle back, which candidly I’m not sold on, he should chase her down to Brazil or Abu Dhabi or wherever attractive rich people hang out, and profess his love to her rom-com style. Then once he wins her hand back, post an engagement photo on Instagram with the caption: “You know what my favorite ring is? The next one.”
3. Become a really mean, ineffective head coach
Here’s the thing about all the GOATs in any sport. They SUCK at coaching after their playing days are done. Ted Williams had a short lived, very unsuccessful stint as a manager, Michael Jordan presides over one of the worst teams in basketball, and Wayne Gretzky hovered around or below .500 for his entire 4-year coaching career.
So why do men who mastered their sport struggle to coach it? Because they can’t teach their inherent gifts to lesser players. Steph Curry could coach me on shooting every day for a year and I still wouldn’t be an NBA caliber shooter. It’s impossible to teach someone something that you were born knowing how to do better anyone else.
This is why I would LOVE to see Tommy as a head coach. No chance he would ever start the dual-threat, strong-armed prototypical QB. He’d have some scrawny un-drafted kid out of Toledo out there getting his ass kicked every week cause he doesn’t have the mobility to escape the rush. Brady meanwhile would be scrolling through his 5th smashed tablet of the game, frantically trying to figure out why this guy hasn’t won 6 Super Bowls yet. It would be appointment television.
Have a great weekend everyone. Here’s one last glimpse at Tommy’s greatness:
