For as interesting as his Wednesday interview with Howard Stern could be, Tom Brady‘s column that appeared out of nowhere on Monday was not.
The lengthy item landed on The Players’ Tribune website, founded by Brady’s new landlord in Tampa and reportedly sold last year to Minute Media. And, regardless of whether it was written by Brady or by Players’ Tribune staff or some collaboration between the two (one of the most common criticisms of the website is that the players don’t actually write the things that are posted in their names), it really didn’t tell anyone anything they didn’t already know.
The most interesting inclusion was this, which Brady may have said at some point in the past 20 years, but which still stands out now that he’s moved on from Boston: When Brady was drafted by the New England Patriots, he didn’t know much about New England at all.
“I honestly didn’t have a clear idea where New England actually was,” Brady (or someone) writes. “Was New England an actual place?”
Brady will now be playing, eventually, in a new place, and the most interesting and glaring omission in the scroll-scroll-scroll-your-boat column was that it contains no indication whatsoever of the seismic shift in sports and reality resulting from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“It may be the off-season now, but to me it feels like the season has already started,” Brady (or someone) writes, without acknowledging the mastodon in the room that may not let the season start on time, or at all.
“Gillette Stadium holds around 70,000 people,” Brady (or someone) explains, “and I’ve never not played in a sold-out stadium during my career as a Patriot. How fortunate am I?”
Possibly not very fortunate, considering that if he plays at all in 2020 he may be playing before empty stadiums or in practice facilities.
That kind of ignorance-is-bliss approach may fly when presenting material on a first-person player-centric website, but it won’t work when it’s time to talk to Howard Stern on Wednesday. Surely, Stern will ask Brady to explain how this new reality for all of us impacts his own — especially since Stern’s legendary research skills surely will include careful study of the 2,614-word article published on Monday.