Tom Brady chose football over family and lost
Tom Joyce
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady chose football over family, and it is not going well for him.
Statistically, the recently-divorced quarterback is having a competent year; but football is a team sport, and the Buccaneers are not doing well. The Bucs lost to the Cleveland Browns in overtime on Sunday and fell to 5-6 on the season.
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Instead of sticking to his commitment to retire and spend more time with his wife and children, Brady decided to play and lose.
Tom Brady has nothing left to prove as a football player. The 45-year-old is a seven-time Super Bowl champ who holds the NFL records for passing yards, completions, and touchdown passes. He’s the best NFL quarterback of all time and arguably the greatest player in NFL history.
Following the 2021 NFL season, Brady retired and expressed interest in spending more time with his family.
“I said this a few years ago, it’s what relationships are all about,” Brady said on the Let’s Go podcast a week before he officially retired. “It’s not always what I want. It’s what we want as a family. And I’m gonna spend a lot of time with them and figure out in the future what’s next.”
So when Brady retired, he got it right. He seemed to understand the duty to be there for his wife and children. The family has plenty of money, and retiring from the sport would allow him to spend more time with them.
That’s an opportunity that many working and middle-class Americans would love to have but unfortunately don’t due to the high cost of living. If finances weren’t a factor, more mothers would prefer to stay home with the children or work part-time instead of working full-time. Presumably, many fathers would also love to work fewer hours and spend more time with their families, if it were financially feasible.
However, Brady had other ambitions. After retiring from his 22-year NFL career in February, Brady un-retired in March — and five months later, Brady was missing time in training camp due to divorce proceedings.
Gisele Bundchen, Brady’s now ex-wife, had been open about wanting her husband to spend more time with the family.
“Obviously, I have my concerns — this is a very violent sport, and I have my children and I would like him to be more present,” she told Elle magazine in a September interview. “I have definitely had those conversations with him over and over again. But ultimately, I feel that everybody has to make a decision that works for [them]. He needs to follow his joy, too.”
Bundchen, who has scaled back her highly successful modeling career for the sake of her family, also said in the interview that she feels like she has made sacrifices for the family.
“I’ve done my part, which is [to] be there for [Tom],” she said. “I moved to Boston, and I focused on creating a cocoon and a loving environment for my children to grow up in and to be there supporting him and his dreams. Seeing my children succeed and become the beautiful little humans that they are, seeing him succeed, and being fulfilled in his career — it makes me happy. At this point in my life, I feel like I’ve done a good job on that.”
If only Brady had learned from his former teammate Cole Beasley. The former Bucs wide receiver retired earlier this season to spend more time with his family — and has stayed retired.
“He is ready to be with his family after playing 11 seasons, and it’s time to be a full-time dad and husband,” Beasley’s agent, Joel Turner, said at the time of his retirement. “His wife and kids are still back home in Texas.”
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Men like Beasley are what our culture needs — not Brady.
Fatherhood should be a priority for men with children, not playing football. Unfortunately, even with all the money and resources at his disposal, Brady couldn’t figure that out.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.