New Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady spoke with Howard Stern in a wide-ranging conversation this week than ran from the problematic to the inane, but one moment that did stick out (to me anyway) was one in which he talked about why he missed OTAs with the Patriots a couple years back.
Brady missed offseason organized team activities in 2018 and 2019 for the first time in his Patriots career, which led to rampant speculation on sports talk radio that it was indicative of a souring relationship with Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.
Brady has long maintained that it wasn’t the case, though he never elaborated much. This week he went into much more detail with Stern, explaining that he missed the workouts due to a compromise he had made with his wife, Gisele Bundchen, who felt that he wasn’t pulling his weight with the family.
From the interview, and a transcription from CBS Sports:
“At different times, like any married couple, things need to be changed,” Brady said. “A couple of years ago … she didn’t feel like I was doing my part for the family. She felt like I would play football all season and she would take care of the house and then all of a sudden when the season ended I would be like, ‘Great, let’s get into all my other business activities. Let me get into my football training.’ And she is sitting there going, ‘Well, when are you going to do things for the house? When are you going to take the kids to school and do that?’
He went on: “So, two years ago, as it even related to football for me, I had to make a big transition in my life to say, I can’t do all the things I wanted to do for football like I used to. I gotta take care of things with my family because the family situation wasn’t great. She wasn’t satisfied with our marriage, so I needed to make change there.”
This is surprisingly raw and real from the normally very reserved and protective Brady.
And, for the record: Good on Gisele. It can’t be easy being married to a professional athlete during the season, especially one who is famously committed beyond what is normally expected even of professional athletes.
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