Tom Brady has opened up about his dedication to his sport.
The NFL star chatted about what it was like getting to work at the start of the football season during Monday’s episode of his Sirius XM show “Let’s Go! with Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald, and Jim Gray”.
“I almost look at like a football season like you’re going away on deployment in the military, and it’s like, man, here I go again,” said the 45-year-old Tampa bay quarterback.
Brady went on to credit his competitive spirit with motivating him to keep up the long grueling hours.
“When it comes down to it, your competitiveness takes over and as much as you want to have this playful balance with the work balance, you’re going to end up doing exactly what you’ve always done, which is why you are who you are,” he said.
Brady’s military discipline will come in particularly handy this season. As rumors swirl about the breakdown of his marriage to supermodel Gisele Bündchen, the seven-time SuperBowl champion will likely need all the help he can get in shutting out the outside world.
Gray quizzed the quarterback on his ability to “ignore it all”, asking: “Does it not make a difference to you what’s going on online and social media?”
Brady replied: “Well, I think the point is everyone should just be authentic to who they are. You know, some people approach it in different ways and it just has to work for them as part of your personality.”
According to Brady, his method of dealing with unwanted media attention is “to just ignore as much as possible and realize that most of the people in the conversation don’t have a full idea of what’s really going on.”
Tom Brady and wife Gisele Bündchen. Credit: PA Images / Alamy
Reports of Brady and his wife’s marital issues have circulated ever since he announced he was coming back out of retirement a mere two months after bidding farewell to the NFL.
Earlier this month, it was reported that the pair were living separately and had even hired divorce lawyers.
Bündchen opened up about her marriage in an interview with ELLE, explaining why she had reservations about him coming out of retirement.
“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 the magazine. “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”