Tom Brady found himself in the middle of a mini-controversy last week after telling Patriots fans to show up and start drinking early prior to the team’s game against the Chargers. The NFL, despite selling plenty of beer sponsorships, doesn’t want to encourage fans to get blitzed, so the Patriots tried to cover up Tom’s words. Brady explained that he was trying to bring a bit of humor to his press conference but that he won’t make the same mistake again.
During an interview played on Westwood One’s broadcast of Monday Night Football, Brady explained that he doesn’t tell the media how he truly feels or thinks because he needs to avoid creating headlines.
“I don’t often say exactly how I feel,” Brady said. “And I don’t often say exactly what I think. Because you don’t want to cause controversy. When there is controversy, all your teammates start getting asked about ‘What Brady said.’ Really, it becomes a distraction to the team. You’re trying to get ready for an important game on the weekend, and then now, on Thursday and Friday, the only thing that people want to talk about is some comment the quarterback on your team made.
“When that happens, I feel bad and a certain responsibility to my teammates that in some way I let them down. That they have to be cleaning up a mess that I made for the rest of the team. And that’s never a position that I want to put my teammates in because we have too many other things to worry about.
“In the media-driven culture that we have, and I understand that every reporter has a job to do, and every newspaper is trying to sell a story, and there’s hard competition for that. But for me, I always try to keep it to football and about the focus of the week so that I can be the best representative for my team as possible.”
This certainly seems to fit in with the “Patriots Way,” which is giving bland press conferences. Heck, as we wrote in June, Bill Belichick’s rules for speaking to the media is to use cliches. It’s no surprise that Brady admits he can’t say how he really feels.
In the same interview, Brady also touched on Eli Manning calling himself one of the elite quarterbacks.
“I really admire [Eli] as an athlete, as a leader. He plays in a tough market, and the media’s tough on him. In ’07, we played them in the Super Bowl and he played a hell of a game. Every time that I watch him out there he’s making good decisions and making good plays.
“The only thing that’s really important, at the end of the day, is whether your team wins the Super Bowl or not. Because there’s only one team that experiences greatness at the end of the season. And Eli has done that, and he’s a great player.”
Well let’s see, Brady admits that he lies to avoid controversy, and one of the Belichick media rules is to compliment your opponents. Any chance that what Brady says about Eli isn’t true? I’d say it’s highly possible.
Honestly, I don’t blame Brady. I like athletes who are honest and who tell the truth, but he has more important things to worry about than media controversies. Maybe saying “no comment” more frequently would be more appropriate because then he wouldn’t have to lie, but how much different would that be?
