Matter of time for Tom
Documentary hints at Brady’s end game
The only thing missing from the final installment of the Tom Brady Facebook documentary was the secret decoder ring.
We all morphed into make-believe detectives as we watched Episode Six of “Tom vs. Time,” looking
for the various clues and hidden messages that were planted in the film during the editing process. Our collective assignment was to find the clues, to listen for the hidden messages.
Solve The Case of The Aging Quarterback.
We didn’t watch to be entertained. We didn’t watch to learn more about football. We didn’t watch to get a “behind the scenes” look into Brady’s muchchronicled training regime. And we sure as heck didn’t watch to learn the true meaning of life.
All we wanted to know is if there is a planned expiration date to Brady’s career, and, if so, what that expiration date will be.
Alas, we are no closer to answers than we were a week ago, a season ago, a decade ago. The game that is “Tom vs. Time” is certainly in the fourth quarter, on this we can all agree, but Tom is still ahead. Yes, Tom Brady is winning his battle against Time.
Fine. Except the Atlanta Falcons were winning their battle against the Patriots last year in Super Bowl LI. And we all know how that turned out. Like the Falcons, Brady’s gonna lose. Time is gonna win. It’s just a matter of, well, time.
In that respect, the producers of “Tom vs. Time” should have found another project to deploy their artistic talents. This isn’t “The Sixth Sense.” We know how this is going to end. But if “Tom vs. Time” performed one very important public service, it proved — or perhaps “reinforced” is the correct word here — that Brady’s supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen and the kids have as much say as ol’ No. 12 as to how this plays out. Possibly even more say.
In the last episode, appropriately titled, “The End Game,” we have a ton of hidden messages, such as Gisele saying of her husband “. . . the last two years have been very challenging for him, in so many ways.” What’s that all about? There’s Gisele saying that Tom said, “I just want to go to work and feel appreciated and have fun.”
What’s that all about?
We see the strip-sack that led to doom against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII, followed by an after-the-game freeze frame of Brady hugging his family, with audio laid over the image in which the quarterback says, “That was first time that I had seen my kids react in that way. You know, Benny was crying, Vivi was crying. And they were sad for me, and sad for the Patriots.
“But I just said to them, ‘Guys, this is a great lesson. You know, we don’t always win. We try our best. And sometimes it doesn’t go the way we want.’ ”
Brady then added, “That’s probably the best moment I’ve had as a parent, because you really feel like you’re parenting.”
And this is followed by a cut to a pleasant family scene that takes place in the Brady kitchen. This project is as much about Gisele and the kids as about Tom and the Patriots. Bill Belichick? His presence is on a par with the mysterious Maris, the never-seen wife of Dr. Niles Crane in “Frasier.”
Admittedly, we all see what we want to see in “Tom vs. Time.” You see a message in a phone conversation Brady has with tight end Rob Gronkowski. The next fella sees messages in all the face time lavished on Brady’s loyal trainer Alex Guerrero. Me? I see Gisele appearing every two or three minutes, and never as window dressing. This is no doting 1950s housewife. This is a woman as dominant and successful in her field as Brady has been in his, and, like Brady, she is a skillful business person.
If this were 1958, she would be appearing in “Tom vs. Time” wearing an apron and holding a plate of cookies. But this is 2018, and Gisele’s appearance in this documentary follows her 2017 comments on “CBS This Morning” when she very calmly and candidly said her husband “. . . had a concussion last year. He has concussions, pretty much. I mean, we don’t talk about it. But he does have concussions. And I don’t really think it’s a healthy thing for your body to go through that kind of aggression, like, all the time.”
True, “Tom vs. Time” was assembled by talented editors. Had they wanted to, they could have had Brady come across as a man about to make a presidential run.
But in presenting Brady as a husband whose wife is a major player in this story, I don’t think they had to work very hard. A high school kid with an Apple and “Final Cut” could have made a reasonable effort.