Are Tom Brady And Gisele Bundchen On Same Page With QB's Career Plan?
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Tom Brady wants to play in the NFL until he's 75 years old. Seriously. But for the time being, he's setting a more modest goal of playing until he's 45 years old, and then seeing how he feels and perhaps extending his career even longer. He says his wife is fully on board with this plan.
But ... is she?
It is undoubtedly a question we would not be asking if Brady were not married to a world-famous supermodel who lives a very public life. Yet, he is, and on Wednesday morning she caused a bit of a stir when she said the quarterback regularly suffers concussions in describing football as a violent activity.
"I don't really think it's a healthy thing for your body to go through like, through that kind of aggression like, all the time -- that cannot be healthy for you, right?" Gisele said on CBS This Morning. "I mean I'm planning on having him be healthy and do a lot of fun things when we're like 100, I hope."
This comment from Gisele certainly stands in contrast with what Brady told ESPN in a story that ran on Monday.
"Hopefully she never says, 'Look, this has to be it.' ... My wife and my kids, it's a big investment of their time and energy, too," Brady said. "She wants me to [play into my mid-40s], too. She also wants me to take good care of myself and still have my energy. My kids have grown up faster than I thought."
The two are not necessarily at odds with each other, but the quote from Bundchen surely looks like a comment from a wife who doesn't much enjoy watching her husband get hit by 300-pound defensive linemen on a regular basis.
And of course, this is not the first time it's been publicized that Gisele would prefer Tom spend his Sundays at home, not getting slammed to the turf by angry, powerful men who are 15 years younger than him.
That's according to Brady himself, who shared in his post-Super Bowl glow that his wife asked him to retire in February.
Now we know that the suggestion from Bundchen came with the knowledge that Brady's been playing through some unreported head injuries.
"Like, he had a concussion last year," Bundchen said in the interview that aired Wednesday. "I mean, he has concussions pretty much every -- I mean, we don't talk about it, but he does have concussions."
Again -- and this needs to be reiterated -- this wouldn't be a public talking point if Brady and Bundchen themselves hadn't made it a public talking point. And so, with Brady's career length constantly serving as a discussion point in New England and beyond, the two contrasting viewpoints this week at least raise some questions about the quarterback's long-term plans in the NFL.
