(Merged) NYT:Tom Brady Cannot Stop

[Fencer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/magazine/tom-brady-cannot-stop.html

“Sometimes we’ll go over to Tom and Gisele’s house for dinner,” Brady’s father, also named Tom, told me. “And then I’ll say afterward, ‘Where are we going for dinner?' ”

I'm quoting a considerable amount of text total here, but it's still a small fraction of the overall article. If I were the author or publisher I'd be comfortable with this being fair use -- and I do write and publish professionally.

 

[Fencer]

Brady says he tends to gravitate to mentors like Harden, who don’t necessarily embrace mainstream philosophies of coaching and training. Yee, Brady’s agent, described Brady to me as “genially subversive” in his approaches. A few years ago, Brady turned to a former major-league pitcher and pitching coach, Tom House, to help him with his throwing mechanics. House, who worked closely with Nolan Ryan, the Hall of Fame pitcher who played in the major leagues until he was 46, was known for deploying unorthodox practice routines.

 

[Fencer]

On the Wednesday before the Patriots’ season opener against Miami, Brady was going through a drill in practice when he felt a tug in his right calf, followed by sharp pain. It was either a tear or a severe pull, an injury that Brady said can require four to six weeks of recovery.

...

Brady missed only one day of practice after the calf injury.

Attributed to Guerrero's awesome massages.

 

[Fencer]

Brady met Guerrero through his former teammate Willie McGinest. After the 2006 season, Brady was suffering from pain in his groin. “I had this adductor muscle that was pulling so tight, and it was pulling on the tendon,” Brady says. The team, he says, recommended surgery in the off-season that involved cutting the tendon to relieve pain. This is a common procedure around football, Brady says. Guerrero told him not to do it. He invited Brady to California, where he was living at the time. Guerrero put Brady through workouts designed to “lengthen” and “re-educate” the muscle so the tendon did not have to work as hard; Brady says his pain was gone in a matter of days.

Brady is always telling his teammates to see Guerrero. Many do, with varying levels of commitment. The former Patriots receiver Wes Welker, Brady’s close friend, was a disciple, as is the current receiver Julian Edelman. The linebacker Junior Seau finished his career in New England, where he worked with Guerrero; Brady says Seau nicknamed Guerrero “Mr. Miyagi.”

“Willie used to be the big Alex evangelist,” Brady says, referring to McGinest. “Now I’m the evangelist.” It can be a tricky part to play with teammates. The Patriots have their own training, conditioning and medical program. When I asked Guerrero if the conventional philosophies that govern training and treatment in the N.F.L. ever clash with what he is doing, he said, “Most of the time.” I put the same question to the Patriots’ owner, Robert Kraft. “It doesn’t come without its challenges,” Kraft replied. “But we have a coach that’s accepting, and we have the leader of the franchise who’s driving it.”

 

[Fencer]

Kraft tends to go off on tangents and lose track of what he’s saying. “I have terrible A.D.D.,” he said a few times. “One of the reasons I wanted to buy the team is because I have A.D.D., so as I got older, I would be able to have something that I know would be challenging.” After several minutes of zigzagging, Kraft announced that it was time to “do business,” and he jumped into an extended kvelling over his prized quarterback (“One of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever met in my life” . . . “physically very handsome, but as a human being he’s more beautiful” . . . “like a fifth son to me”).

 

[Fencer]

I put the “ending badly” question to Brady’s actual father. Unburdened by diplomacy or loyalty to anyone but his son, the original Tom Brady did not hesitate. “It will end badly,” he said. “It does end badly. And I know that because I know what Tommy wants to do. He wants to play till he’s 70.”

 

[Fencer]

Brady felt awesome and had managed to avoid injuries in the second half of the season, with the exception of straining his right pointer finger when Detroit’s Ndamukong Suh threw him to the ground in the Patriots’ 34-9 win over Detroit in Week 12.

 

[Fencer]

He marched me back into the house, through the kitchen and past a shelf that displayed a large glass menorah. “We’re not Jewish,” Brady said when I asked him about this. “But I think we’re into everything. . . . I don’t know what I believe. I think there’s a belief system, I’m just not sure what it is.” After Brady won his third Super Bowl in 2005, he seemed to betray a wistful sense of anticlimax in an interview with Steve Kroft on “60 Minutes.” “Maybe a lot of people would say, ‘Hey, man, this is what it is, I’ve reached my goal,' ” he told Kroft. “Me, I think, God, it’s got to be more than this.”

I read this quote back to Brady, nearly 10 years and zero Super Bowl victories later, and he laughed at his naïveté. “I got a litany of Bibles sent to me after that,” Brady told me. “When I think back on that, what a narrow perspective I had. I’m 27. I don’t know [expletive]. Not that I know [expletive] at 37.”

 

[Fencer]

“I just know that I’m sitting here at age 37 and I feel perfect at the end of 16 games,” Brady told me. “My arm doesn’t hurt, my legs don’t hurt. My teammates, they’re hurting.”

 

[Fencer]

He has suffered few, if any, concussions.

 

[shmessy]

Benjy has a reading comprehension problem:

Ben Volin ✔ @BenVolin
That calf injury Brady suffered before Week 1 was a lot more serious than the team let on (of course) http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/magazine/tom-brady-cannot-stop.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0…


".......On the Wednesday before the Patriots’ season opener against Miami, Brady was going through a drill in practice when he felt a tug in his right calf, followed by sharp pain. It was either a tear or a severe pull, an injury that Brady said can require four to six weeks of recovery........After the strain in practice, Brady hobbled up to Guerrero, who felt around the injured area and isolated the site of the trauma. He went to work stimulating the area with his hands to flush out the excess blood and lymph that build up around an injury........Brady missed only one day of practice after the calf injury."

Define "alot more serious". Is it missing MORE than ONE DAY of practice?

We get your refrain, Benjy, they 'are cheaters'.

 

[Patsrock]

And then there is this one leaving out the last part.

Ben Volin ‏@BenVolin 3m3 minutes ago
This NYT Mag piece is phenomenal. Tom Brady's dad on the relationship between Pats and his son: "It will end badly." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/magazine/tom-brady-cannot-stop.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0…

"I put the “ending badly” question to Brady’s actual father. Unburdened by diplomacy or loyalty to anyone but his son, the original Tom Brady did not hesitate. “It will end badly,” he said. “It does end badly. And I know that because I know what Tommy wants to do. He wants to play till he’s 70.”

 

[shmessy]

And then there is this one leaving out the last part.

Ben Volin ‏@BenVolin 3m3 minutes ago
This NYT Mag piece is phenomenal. Tom Brady's dad on the relationship between Pats and his son: "It will end badly." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/magazine/tom-brady-cannot-stop.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0…



"I put the “ending badly” question to Brady’s actual father. Unburdened by diplomacy or loyalty to anyone but his son, the original Tom Brady did not hesitate. “It will end badly,” he said. “It does end badly. And I know that because I know what Tommy wants to do. He wants to play till he’s 70.”

Poor Benjy.

 

[patfanken]

Thanks for the link Fencer. I thoroughly enjoyed that article. Brady certainly is what he is. He is naïve enough to still want to live the dream, and smart enough to figure out a way to do it.

The one complaint I'd mention to the author if I had a chance was the continuation of he myth that playing for the Pats means working in a joyless, harsh and overworked environment. While I do believe that if you play for the Pats, you are going to have to work harder at your craft than most teams, especially on the mental side. However from everything I have EVER gathered, playing for the Pats also means playing for a good group of guys and having a lot of laughs to go along with all the hard work. I wish the national audience would finally come to realize that the ONLY people who find Bellichick a "soulless, cranky taskmaster",. are the soulless, self absorbed, mediots themselves. It certainly doesn't include his players and co-workers.

 

[PP2]

One of the better articles about Brady that I've read, no agenda at work here, just good "telling it as it is" journalism.

How fortunate are we have to him as our quarterback, not just for his talent, work ethic, but his holistic approach to football, which has kept him healthy and competitive for so long. 14 long seasons.

There will be never another one like him.

 

[pwes]

That was a really good article. Enjoyed it a lot

 

[Patters]

Great long article about Tom Brady, probably the most revealing article about him I've read. The New York Times has a tendency to make articles only available to subscribers after a few days, so not sure how long this will be available.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/magazine/tom-brady-cannot-stop.html?_r=0

...

But the Patriots remained my team, and Brady, in my view, always exhibits his own sheepish grace within the parochial madhouse of Boston sports. He was a pleasure to watch in games, and he rarely messed up or said the wrong thing off the field. He had the aura of old-Hollywood larger-than-lifeness. He also remained, in his own way, shallowly drawn, which made him more fascinating to me.

 

[Uncle Rico]

Cool insight on Brady's training regimen (even while on vacation):

Every morning in the Bahamas, Brady undertook an intense regimen that included resistance drills, exercises with rubber bands and stretches designed to foster muscular flexibility. While traditional training in football emphasizes the building of muscle strength, Guerrero’s also focuses on pliability, which Brady equates to sponginess and elasticity. “If there’s so much pressure, just constant tugging on your tendons and ligaments, you’re going to get hurt,” Brady told me. “Like with a kid, when they fall, they don’t get hurt. Their muscles are soft. When you get older, you lose that.”

After his vacation workouts, Brady joined his family for a late breakfast that — for him — consisted mainly of a protein shake that was also high in electrolytes and included greens like kale and collards. (Brady also likes to add blueberries to his concoctions, but some other berries are off limits because they are thought to promote inflammation.) I asked Guerrero at one point if Brady is ever allowed to eat a cheeseburger. “Yes, we have treats,” he said. “We make them.” Like what? “Usually raw desserts, like raw macaroons.” Ice cream made from avocado is another favorite, Guerrero said.

Kind of a bummer about the cold he's having now. I was just thinking the other day it seems like he's always beaten up or sick this time of year but seems to have escaped all that this year. Could be worse than having a cold (seem to remember he did OK against Pittsburgh in the '04 AFCCG).

 

[Fencer]

A number of excerpts from the article are in Monday's thread http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/threads/long-nyt-feature-on-brady.1115707/

 

[shmessy]

This is a magnum opus. Great piece of journalism.

I actually went to school with Mark Leibovich - -Newton South HS Class of '83. We weren't close friends or anything, but I remember him as a really good kid.

Smart guy from a smart town!

PS, he's right on about Larry Bird - - HS kids in Newton would bike around his block (or borrow a parents car) just to catch a glimpse of him mowing the lawn. Sometimes there would be slow moving traffic jams. Bird didn't seem to care. Still did his own damn lawn. He lived right next to door to his agent Bob Woolf and there were no gates or hidden entrances. Just a lawn and the street. Good times.