For a retired guy, Tom Brady has a lot of jobs. He has a five percent ownership stake in the Las Vegas Raiders. He is also Fox Sports' lead football announcer. Earlier this month, Fox announced that Brady will be making an “epic return from retirement for the greatest flag football event ever,” which is, inevitably, going to be held in Saudi Arabia. There’s also TB12, “the method inspired by Tom Brady,” though who knows how much involvement he has here. He co-founded a production company that produced a documentary series about his ownership of a British soccer team for Amazon Prime; Luis hated it. In 2022 he launched his Brady Brand clothing line, but that seems dead; everything is on deep, deep discount.
Maybe that’s why he needs even more jobs. Based on his white-on-white outfit from Sunday's Eagles-Bucs game, Tom Brady had a catering gig lined up postgame. Or, given that it was north of 90 degrees in Tampa yesterday, maybe he was headed outside the stadium to sell ice cream afterward. Brady is a Catholic, but I don't know if he received all the sacraments. The Archdiocese of San Francisco didn’t return my call requesting records, so there is also a chance Tom Brady made his first Holy Communion in the morning and then had to rush to the stadium. It’s not really first Holy Communion season, but they changed some of the words in the mass a while back, so maybe they changed that, too. They make exceptions for really rich guys sometimes.
Every whiny Eagles fan, and also the seven who aren’t whiny, are angry at Brady today for reasons other than his sartorial choices. And rightly so! We are angry at him for using the word “we” to describe the Buccaneers' chances for a comeback in Sunday’s game, in which the Bucs ultimately did not come back. (I’m one of the whiny ones.) As much as I’d love to pile on Brady here, I actually don’t think this is worthy of too much anger. Brady was simply trying to quote the movie Dumb and Dumber, where Lloyd (Jim Carrey) says, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.” No doubt you’ve seen this as a reaction meme even if you haven’t seen the film. Why am I even explaining this? Stupid is as stupid does, to quote another 1994 film.
“I like the excitement,” Brady said after the Bucs cut the Eagles’ lead to 31-23 in the fourth quarter. “You’re saying we got a chance.” Kevin Burkhardt, sweating through his own white button-front shirt, did correct the line immediately after. “Got a chance!” Brady replied. It was the equivalent of John Madden, during the September 1995 Bucs-Eagles game, saying “one of these days … to the moon, Alice!” Only Brady misquoted the line, so in this case I guess imagine John Madden talking about sending Ricky Watters to Mars or whatever. Then it fits.
Anyway, now that Tom Brady is back from Diner en Blanc, he can join the Polyphonic Spree for its fall tour and catch up on some movie quotes before shows. Hakuna matata!
