FOXBORO, Mass. — Tom Brady finally broke his seven-month long silence Sunday, when he stood in front of his locker, surrounded three-deep by reporters, and addressed his overturned suspension.
Brady seems desperate to be past the Deflategate drama, and mostly redirected questions about the scandal and U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman’s decision to nullify his four-game suspension with answers about the upcoming season.
“Well, I’ll be excited to run out there Thursday night,” Brady said. “It’s obviously been a long seven months for everybody, but I think now the goal is to focus on what my job is and what I need to go out there and do to help our team win. Everything that’s happened over the past seven months, obviously I have a lot of personal feelings, but I really don’t care to share many of those.
“I really care to think about what I need to do going forward. We’ve got a lot of guys in this locker room who worked really hard to get to this point, and so have I, and I’m excited to be able to go out there and do it.”
Brady will be on the field Thursday, when fans will be at unheard-of raucous levels, greeting their quarterback as the Super Bowl XLIX banner is raised when the New England Patriots take on the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL kickoff game. Brady, the consummate Patriot, is focused on the upcoming season, however, not the team’s championship.
“It hasn’t happened in a long time,” Brady said. “I think our guys are excited, but I think mostly we’ve got to focus on what our job is, and that’s to put that celebration behind us and move forward into a new year because it’s different challenges, different teams, different schedule. Any time you’re in a situation like we’re in, we know that we’re going to get everybody’s best.”
Brady was forced to miss training practices to attend settlement conferences, so it’s been an unusual offseason for him.
“It’s just different,” Brady said. “I think I’ve dealt with different situations in my life. You’ve got to always figure out a way to overcome different obstacles you face, and part of it is being mentally tough, and part of it is compartmentalizing things and dealing with things when they’re really kind of at the forefront.
“And then when they’re not you’ve got to put them someplace else and think about what your job is. I think that’s a lot of what I’ve learned over the years playing this position, and certainly any time you’re someone that’s in the public eye like I am, you deal with different things.
“I think everybody in their life deals with different stresses, whatever they may be — financial, or family stress, or work stress — and you just do the best you can do.”
Thumbnail photo via Jim Dedmon/USA TODAY Sports Images
