I’ll put this out there for those who feel compelled to dispute it: Tom Brady was the smartest athlete I have ever seen.
In terms of sports, there’s smart and there’s Tom Brady smart. It was the old checkers-chess analogy, except Brady was like the guy in Central Park who had six games going on at once, winning them all. His biggest rivals and toughest opponents were not the most physically gifted. He beat them all. They were the ones who approached his understanding of the game and his opponents.
And there was only one: Peyton Manning. That’s why you lived for those matchups. And even then, there is no question that Manning was the more physically gifted quarterback. For Brady to win as often as he did, he had to out-think Manning and the Colts in the same manner Bill Russell had to out-think Wilt Chamberlain.
Brady’s retirement, which he finally announced Tuesday after a weekend tap-dance routine worthy of the late Gregory Hines himself, finalizes what many Patriots fans have not wanted to face: the era of dominance in the NFL, which lasted from 2001 through 2020, is over. That, my friends, is the end of an era.
There are still legions of fans out there who think that all the Patriots have to do is get a talented quarterback and have “in Bill we trust” coach him up, and voila: Let the good times roll.
Dream on. From all appearances, Mac Jones should have a very good career in the National Football League. But he is not Brady, probably will never be Brady. Brady was special. And watching him morph from the Brady of 2002 into realizing how special he was, and how gracefully he lived with that, is one of the highlights of my career, let alone his.
I have nothing bad to say about the man. Not even close. Brady was the Beatles. He was Robin Williams. Picasso. Think of any transcendent person and Brady was right there with him or her.
How many times did I drag myself out of bed at 6:30 on a cold Sunday morning, or fight traffic to get to the stadium for a night game, all the while asking myself why, for heaven’s sake. Our paper could have just as easily picked up the Associated Press story and nobody would have ever known the difference.
So why go? Because every time I went, there was a chance I was going to see something special. Very often I did.
I’m under no illusions that Brady was “Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy.” I don’t doubt for a second that Brady had a little Eddie Haskell in him, and that when he was away from the media glare, he could act like the typical jock.
But he had the good sense not to act that way when he was in the media glare. He was curiously alike and unlike his coach. Neither would tell you if you were on fire, but where Bill Belichick was a churl, Brady was civil.
I understand why he left, and really, I don’t blame either side for it. After 20 years of Belichick, I’d be ready to leave too. In this day and age, how many of us work for the same person, and under the same system for 20 years? There’s never — in my memory anyway — been an instance of a quarterback and a coach working together that long.
And part of Belichick’s job is to look ahead, and if I’m looking into the future, I’m not doing it with a middle-aged quarterback who couldn’t move when he was 25, let alone 45.
I just wish Brady had orchestrated his retirement the same way he orchestrated some of those fourth-quarter comebacks, and that he could have found at least a paragraph in that War-and-Peace announcement of his to mention the Patriots.
When he was on the field, even if he was doing badly, you never got the feeling Brady was anything but in control. But he didn’t control this very well. I guess even smart people slip up.
Now that it’s all over, all I can say is that Tom Brady took us all on the wildest of rides to the highest of heights. When I was a kid, and used to watch the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers, I’d fantasize about what it must be like to have my team on national TV every week, playing in big games, and being in Super Bowls.
I got my wish and then some. Thanks for everything, Tom.
