Sports Illustrated's latest feature on the New England Patriots in advance of Super Bowl LII includes a noteworthy nugget in it.
Here's the last scene in the piece:
Last spring Brady and his family vacationed with retired kicker Jay Feely, a close friend from their college days at Michigan. This being Brady, Feely prefers not to disclose the locale, but he does share that Brady's wife, the supermodel Gisele Bündchen, spent time on that trip "trying to get me to convince [Tom] to stop playing." And, Feely adds, "she was dead serious."
Feely says he looked at his friend and told him, "Play as long as you can." Brady smiled back and winked.
"For years he wanted to prove he belonged in this league," Feely says. "He won three Super Bowls and still used perceived slights to motivate himself. And he's still finding ways to motivate himself."
This isn't the first time we've heard about Brady's wife trying to convince him to hang up his spikes. Last year, Brady himself told SiriusXM's Jim Miller that Bundchen was on him about retiring:
"If it was up to my wife, she would have me retire today. She told me that last night three times. And I said, 'Too bad, babe. I'm having too much fun right now.' You know, I feel like I can still do it, and if you love what you do and you're capable of doing it, then … I'd be so bored if I wasn't going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I'm going to work hard to be ready to go and I still plan on playing for a long time."
Makes you wonder what she'll say this offseason, but it doesn't seem to matter: If he wants to play for longer, particularly at this level, he'll stay in the league.
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