Brady says he’ll be back, says still has things to do

In a radio interview with Westwood One that aired before Sunday’s Super Bowl, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady confirmed that he will return next season, regardless of the outcome of the game.

“Yeah, you’re going to see me playing football next year,” Brady told Westwood One. “I don’t envision not playing. You’re at the end of the race, but you’ve got your biggest mountain to climb right at the end. Hopefully all the lessons we’ve learned have allowed us to be at our very best for this moment and that’s what it’s going to take and that’s what we’re prepared for and that’s what I go out and expect our team to do.”

Brady won his third career MVP award Saturday night and, at age 40, became the oldest player to win the award.

He threw for 4,577 yards and 32 touchdowns this season with only eight interceptions.

Brady has previously indicated that he would like to play until he’s in his mid-40s, and he has recently been marketing a Facebook docu-series, Tom vs. Time, that focuses on some of the ways he’s remained sharp de- spite his age.

In a recent episode, he turned to his wife, Gisele Bündchen, and said “two more Super Bowls.”

Brady, who is in his 18th season with the Patriots, currently ranks fourth on the league’s all-time passing chart with 66,159 yards and said on Westwood One that he still has goals that he wants to achieve.

“I’m still not a finished player yet. I’ve still got things I want to do, still think I can be better in certain area,” Brady said on Westwood One.

Bud Grant calls Vince Lombardi a ‘tyrant’

Hall of Fame Minnesota Vikings coach Bud Grant, now 90 and working as a consultant for the Vikings, was asked in a pregame interview with NBC on Sunday about his rocky relationship with Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, whose name is now on the NFL’s championship trophy.

“Vince didn’t get along with a lot of people, and players will tell you that,” Grant told NBC. “Now, I’m not cutting his tires. I mean, he’s a great coach. But he’s a tyrant.”

Grant guided the Vikings to 168 victories over 18 seasons as coach, including four Super Bowls. But he never won a championship with Minnesota.

When asked how he wears those defeats, Grant simply raised his hand, revealing a large blue ring.

“A Hall of Fame ring,” he said.

Grant explains “Viking Formation”

Grant’s Vikings teams were best known for their discipline, including the installment of the “Vikings Formation,” a precise way in which players stood during the national anthem.

Under Grant’s direction, players stood still in a straight line along the sideline. They held their helmets in their right hands with the chinstraps tucked inside. It was something they actually practiced every year at training camp, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

After a season in which protests during the national anthem became a significant theme, Grant was asked why he felt the “Vikings Formation” was so important.

“I was raised during the war,” he told NBC’s Michelle Tafoya while fighting back tears.

“I had a lot of friends that got killed in that war. It’s just important to me, that we show respect to those people who paid the ultimate price. It’s the least I could do. It’s not much. But that’s all I could do.”

Brady says Michael Jordan on ‘different level’

Brady said he will never see himself in the same light as Michael Jordan, even if he were to match Jordan’s six championships with a win against the Philadelphia Eagles.

“He’s at a different level to me,” Brady told Westwood One radio before Sunday’s game. “When you’re a kid, and you’re watching Michael Jordan — the most incredible athlete I’ve ever seen — I could never see myself that way.”

Brady was asked a similar question in a sitdown with NBC, with anchor Dan Patrick asking the 40-year-old if he would belong in the same conversation as Jordan with a sixth title or if that’s a personal goal for him.

“It’s not stuff I think about very often,” Brady said. “I mean, when I was a kid, Michael Jordan was everything. I had his posters on my wall. I had Joe Montana and Steve Young, and I loved baseball. Don Mattingly and Wade Boggs — those guys, there’s a special place for them. I don’t think I could ever be compared to them, just because of the way I see them in my eyes.”