Tom Brady Reiterates Love For New England, Even Though He Originally Didn't Know Where It Was
BOSTON (CBS) -- Tom Brady is gearing up for his 10th Super Bowl, which remains a truly absurd accomplishment for the future Hall of Famer. Brady has the Buccaneers playing for a Lombardi Trophy in his first season in Tampa, and personally, he'll be going for his seventh championship next Sunday afternoon.
Those other six, of course, were won during Brady's 20-year run of dominance with the New England Patriots. And though his storybook career isn't going to have a storybook ending with the franchise he led for two decades, the quarterback has never said anything bad about his time in New England. (Minus a crack about the weather, but who can blame him?)
No one could have ever imagined the level of success that Brady and the Patriots would go on to have after the team drafted him in the sixth round back in 2000. He was asked Thursday about his run in New England, and if he were a Patriots fan if he would be happy or sad to see their former quarterback about to play in the Super Bowl.
Brady sidestepped that question, but reflected on his "incredible" two decades in New England.
"I had an incredible 20 years. I wouldn't change anything over the course of 20 years. That was magical and all the relationships I developed, those shaped me into who I am as a person, as a player. My kids were born in Boston," Brady recalled during his Thursday Zoom session. "I have great affection for the city and everything Boston has meant to me and my family."
That's when Brady spun a pretty funny yarn. It turns out, he couldn't even point New England out on a map when he received his draft-day phone call.
"I didn't even know where New England was when I got picked by New England," he said. "That was always a funny story. They called me and said, 'You've been picked by New England,' and I was like, 'That's amazing. Where's New England?' I landed in Providence, which really screwed me up because that's not even in Massachusetts. You know, it was a great 20 years."
But that run came to an end last March, when Brady decided to move on from the Patriots.
"At the end of the day, I had an opportunity to become a free agent and I evaluated different opportunities, and just tried to make the best possible decision for myself and my family," he said Thursday. "I chose Tampa and it's just been an amazing experience. The only thing that's been difficult is there's a lot of people here that I just have never really had a chance to get to know very well. We're not able to be together in certain rooms, we're not able to eat together. We don't have the normal camaraderie that you have on a normal team. So under the circumstances, we're all doing the best we can do. It's been a tricky year in that sense. I'm just going to go try to do my best, like I always do, to finish the job this coming week."
