During the #DeflateGate saga, agent Don Yee on multiple occasions did his top client no favors with private advice supplied and public statements provided. Two days after Tom Brady’s wife dropped a bombshell by claiming that Brady suffered a concussion in 2016 and others in the past, Yee is once again providing cover, albeit somewhat less clumsily this time.
“Tom was not diagnosed with a concussion,” Yee declares, in a statement that is likely factually accurate. If Brady told no doctor that he was suffering from the symptoms of a concussion, Brady couldn’t have been diagnosed with a concussion.
It’s a brilliant move on the surface, a Friday-afternoon non-news news dump aimed at getting an inquisitive media off the trail just before the weekend preceding the three-day weekend that could press the reset button and make everyone forget about the controversy that arrived out of the clear blue sky on Wednesday morning. Making it even more brilliant is the fact that Brady has found a way (for now) to avoid addressing the situation personally.
Brady was facing a lose-lose prospect: (1) tell the world that Gisele was misinformed and face the potential consequences at home (along with possibly renewed pressure to walk away from football); or (2) admit that one or more concussions have been concealed and invite a litany of who, what, where, when, why, and how questions aimed at learning more about whether he suffered head injuries and whether the team knew or should have known about them.
For now, Yee’s logically illogical statement takes the heat out of the kitchen, providing something/anything from Brady at a time when his silence had become deafening. Surely the product of careful planning for the last 48 hours among and between Brady, the Patriots, and Yee, it’s the equivalent of blocking the path to the king following the declaration of “check.” The only question is whether “check” ever becomes “checkmate,” or whether the public and the media become bored with watching this chess match, because chess is almost always boring.