Tom Brady has no problem ingesting and understanding brand new, complex offensive playbooks. He’s unequaled when it comes to reading defenses, citing weaknesses, and finding the perfect play to combat it. Heck, he’s led 10 teams now to the Super Bowl, so there’s no doubting his IQ and intelligence.
Yet, Friday when the topic about Brady’s days with the Patriots came up during a media session, the GOAT said back when he was a rookie out of Michigan, drafted in the sixth round by the Patriots, he had no idea where New England was. “They called me and said, ‘You’ve been picked by New England,’” Brady said. “I said, ‘That’s amazing. Where’s New England?’”
To compound his confusion, when Brady initially flew out to practice in a rookie camp his plane landed in Providence, Rhode Island. “That really screwed me up,” Brady added.
After the light moment and the funny anecdote from Brady, he got serious talking about the two decades he spent winning six Super Bowls in Boston. “I had an incredible 20 years, really just an incredible 20 years,” Brady told the media via Zoom. “I wouldn’t change anything over the course of 20 years that were magical, and all the relationships that I developed. Those shaped me into who I am as a person, as a player. My kids were born in Boston, I have great affection for the city and everything that Boston has meant to me and my family. And all of New England, not just Boston.”
That sure sounds nice now, but to outside observers, Brady seems much happier playing in the Tampa Bay sunshine, far away from the bitterness of New England fans and the grumpiness of his old coach. On February 7, he will be the first quarterback to lead his team into a Super Bowl in their home stadium. It will be his 10th big game, but he said experience means little when the game starts. “Experience doesn’t matter. Playing well is all that counts. The team that wins is not going to be the most experienced team, it’s going to be the team that plays the best. So we got to prepare the best, we’ve got to execute the best, we’ve got to perform the best under pressure, and if we do that, we’ll be champions. And if we don’t, we won’t be.”
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