USA TODAY International Edition
Brady cracks jokes at White House visit
Tom Brady surprised the crowd at the White House on Tuesday when he cracked a joke about the 2020 election with President Joe Biden while celebrating the Buccaneers’ Super Bowl 55 victory.
“Not a lot of people think that we could’ve won; in fact I think about 40% of people still don’t think we won,” Brady said.
“I understand that,” Biden replied to a laughing crowd.
“You understand that, Mr. President?”
The Buccaneers visited Biden at the White House on Tuesday to celebrate their championship season.
Brady, who was named Super Bowl MVP for the fifth time in his career, led Tampa Bay to a 31- 9 win over the Chiefs.
It was the first ceremony Brady has attended at the presidential residence since 2005. Brady turned down three other invitations – most recently in 2017 under former President Donald Trump, whom the quarterback previously called a “good friend” – when he won Super Bowls while playing for the Patriots.
Brady delivered another joke when he said people began calling him “Sleepy Tom” after he forgot what down it was during a loss to the Bears in Chicago, a jab at Trump’s nickname for Biden during the election.
“I lost track of one down in 21 years of playing and they started calling me ‘ Sleepy Tom,’ ” Brady said as the crowd chuckled. “Why would they do that to me?”
Tampa’s professional sports teams have won three titles in 2020 and 2021, with the Buccaneers’ victory being bookended by the Lightning’s Stanley Cup wins.
“We’re making a pretty strong case to start calling Tampa Bay the city of champions,” Biden said.
Biden cited Brady and coach Bruce Arians specifically for their efforts in leading the Buccaneers to victory and for a similarity among the three of them.
Each set a record related to their age earlier in 2021.
Biden, 78, in January became the oldest president to be inaugurated. Brady, 43, and Arians, 68, were the oldest quarterback and coach to win a Super Bowl when they did so in February.
“You won’t hear any jokes about that for me as far as I’m concerned,” Biden said. “There’s nothing wrong with being the oldest guy to make it to the mountaintop.”
Brady and Arians weren’t the only people Biden called out by name.
Wide receiver Chris Godwin, whom Biden said he called before the Super Bowl, was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Biden’s home state.
“Most importantly, you’ve got a star receiver from Delaware,” Biden said. “I’m mildly prejudiced about that.”
Biden referenced the trailblazing efforts of the Tampa Bay organization to include women on its coaching staff, as well as efforts to improve voter turnout in Florida and administer COVID- 19 vaccines.
“In the middle of a long, dark winter, every Sunday people were able to sit down and watch you play,” Biden said. “You created memories that helped folks make it through and believe that we could get back to normal again.”
In the middle of his speech, Biden turned to the players behind him and told those who have not received the vaccine to “get one,” with Arians responding “Amen.”
Arians later spoke on the impact the pandemic had on his team.
“I want to thank our coaches, our players, our entire organization, men, women that did such a great job last year of coming together and banding together not to beat the other team, we had to beat the virus first,” Arians said. “You sacrificed more than any team I’ve ever been around.”
The Buccaneers open training camp on Sunday, and it is unclear how many members of the team are vaccinated. Protocols for unvaccinated and vaccinated players will vary during the 2021 season, the NFL announced in June.
The White House ceremony ended with Biden receiving his own Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey, and one more joke from Brady.
“We’re gonna challenge 11 of us, 11 White House interns to a game of football here on the lawn, and we intend to run it up on you guys,” he said. “So get ready to go.”