Officially, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has never had a concussion. Unofficially, it appears that he has.
Brady’s wife, Gisele Bundchen, appeared on CBS This Morning and had this to say to Charlie Rose regarding whether she wants her husband to retire from football.
“I just have to say, as a wife, I’m a little bit — as you know, it’s not the most — let’s say [it’s] an aggressive sport. Football, like he had a concussion last year,” she said. “I mean, he has concussions, pretty much, I mean, we don’t talk about [it] but he does have concussions. I don’t think it’s a healthy thing for your body to go through like — you know, to that kind of aggression all the time. That cannot be healthy for you, right? I mean I plan on having him be healthy and do a lot of fun things when we’re like 100, I hope.
If he had a concussion last year, he apparently hid it from the teams and any/all doctors and/or athletic trainers responsible for spotting concussions and keeping concussed players out of action until they have recovered. While the knee-jerk reaction will be to claim that the Patriots lied on the injury report, the truth very well may be that the team didn’t know and the doctors didn’t know and the athletic trainers didn’t know — and that Brady successfully hid the symptoms to allow himself to continue to play.
The Patriots have not immediately responded to a request for comment. If they ever do comment, they’ll likely say they have no knowledge of any concussion that Brady ever suffered. The real question will be whether Brady has had concussions and what he has done to hide them, or whether his wife is simply misinformed or making bad assumptions.
Either way, the issue presents a complication for Brady that he’ll need to fully and completely address, sooner than later.