For Tom Brady, there's no avoiding Donald Trump during Super Bowl week
Whatever small chance Tom Brady had of avoiding getting asked about his friendship with President Donald Trump went out the window this past weekend, as once again thousands flooded American streets to protest Trump’s actions. Trump is overwhelmingly the biggest story in the world.
That Brady will field at least one Trump question during Monday night’s nationally televised Super Bowl “Media Day” is one of the surest prop bets of the week – if anyone offers such a wager.
Also likely: The New England quarterback will say little to nothing in response.
This is not simply because Brady has tried to downplay his relationship with Trump in the past, but also because Brady says little to nothing about anything other than the need to work hard and play well if the Patriots hope to defeat Atlanta in Sunday’s big game. He’s notoriously – and purposefully – dull on everything. It works. You can’t blame him for staying the course.
That said, for this occasion, he might consider having something substantive planned, if only for the chance to put it past him. Walking in unprepared for something that is inevitable is the antithesis of Tom Brady. Media Day should be treated like a game, with Brady ready to say what he wants to say on the issue – whatever that may be – and then moving on by saying he already addressed it.
As the story goes, Brady and Trump became acquainted soon after Brady’s first Super Bowl victory. Trump invited him to be a guest judge at a beauty pageant. They began golfing together. None of this is unusual for Trump, who spent decades courting celebrities and sports stars.
It got interesting in 2015 when Brady was spotted with a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker during the early days of the Trump candidacy. Trump soon claimed Brady endorsed him, although it isn’t clear that ever really happened. Not that the specifics mattered to Trump, he began mentioning Brady at every turn. Brady has done nothing to sever ties, although he sort of hints that the infatuation is more one-sided than even.
Brady even claims not to understand why anyone cares.
“Why [is it] such a big deal?” Brady said recently on the “Kirk & Callahan” show on WEEI-Radio Boston. “I don’t understand that. I don’t want to get into it, but, just … if you know someone, it doesn’t mean that you agree with everything that they say or do. Right? There [are] things I don’t believe [in], absolutely. I don’t believe in. You know, there [are] a lot of things. Not to denounce anything, it’s just that there [are] different things that I feel like, you know … I don’t agree with everything. That’s fine, right?”
There are two points here, especially in relation to Media Day and Super Bowl week. First, is this fair game? And, second, as Brady notes, why would anyone care what Brady thinks of Trump?
To start, yes, it’s fair game because this is Super Bowl Media Day and the NFL long ago decided that part of the price of admission for players to play in the game is to be subjected to a free-for-all press session where anything and everything is fair game.
There are no rules, and the NFL loves it. For the second consecutive year the league will even broadcast the event live in primetime, also in front of a ticket-paying live audience. The circus is the circus and questions through the years have been about any and every subject, from boxers or briefs to social issues of the day. Very little is about combating blitz packages.
In past Super Bowl Media Day appearances, puppets have interviewed Brady, actors dressed as comic book heroes have questioned Brady, and one time a wedding dress-clad reporter from a Mexican TV network even asked for Brady’s hand in marriage. He politely declined.
Anything goes. Trump doesn’t even begin to reach the level of “stick to sports.” There are no sports here.
Brady can wonder why anyone is interested, but this is Trump, a situation unlike any other. Brady once attended the State of the Union Address of President George W. Bush and skipped a Patriots championship ceremony with President Obama in office. Very little was made or questioned about either incident – and it certainly didn’t carry over into future seasons.
Peyton Manning has long-standing ties to Republican politicians. Just last week he spoke at the GOP retreat in Philadelphia and had Politico.com float him as a possible Republican Senate candidate from Tennessee in 2020. His politics were never news at a Super Bowl.
So while the media certainly slants liberal, that isn’t the chief issue here. It’s Trump. Some of his most vocal and persistent critics, especially in the media, are conservatives who haven’t shifted their principles to cater to the Trump phenomenon. His executive order on refugees was slammed with equal vitriol by Elizabeth Warren and Dick Cheney.
When it comes to reader/viewer interest, anything related to Trump draws fascination/outrage/whatever. The media is there to serve/profit off audiences and readers. Add in Tom Brady and the Super Bowl and this will do exponentially better than, say, another story about how New England’s Chris Hogan once played lacrosse.
Should we care what Brady has to say? Not in a perfect world.
Brady is a football player who has shown limited, at best, interest in politics and said virtually nothing on any substantive issue in two decades in the limelight. This isn’t Colin Kaepernick calling attention to himself and a social cause. Brady doesn’t hold office. He isn’t running for office. He isn’t – as far as we know – a consultant to Trump. He’s mostly downplayed his relationship with Trump only to have Trump continually bring it up.
At this point, though, Brady is hooked with Trump. Maybe he sees him as an old golf buddy, but for many other people, Trump’s executive orders are too significant to just be brushed off as disagreeing with a friend about general politics, like, say, a flat-tax proposal. These are moral deal-breakers, one way or the other.
As such, Brady would be well served to arrive with a well-prepared answer.
Maybe Brady doubles down on what he told WEEI and tries to play the middle. Maybe he shifts and makes a statement either for or against Trump’s policies and practices. He will outrage some segment of the world, but that’s inevitable. And with Trump’s feelings often being as sensitive as a snowflake when it comes to criticism, he risks ending whatever friendship there is between these two.
For his own sake, he should think it through.
Fair or not, reasonable or not, the Trump question is almost certainly coming for Tom Brady. It might even come from a puppet in a wedding dress.
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