At the News England Patriots training camp, NFL Network analyst Willie McGinest talked to Tom Brady.
McGinest: “I mean, as athletes, we like to have our nucleus around us and we like to have a certain amount of talented guys. Gronk’s not here anymore. I mean, a big part of this team, this offense, for a long time. You guys had a lot of success together.”
“Does it become tougher losing that type of talent and then waiting for guys to maybe take the next step, or seeing how you gonna go in and game plan without guys like that now?”
Brady: “Yeah it’s always challenging when you have significant turnover. And I think it’s, I always say it’s like climbing a mountain, you know. And every time you climb the mountain, the next year you start right at the bottom. Right with everyone else. And you have a new group of people. You have a new group of climbers. You got different tools you can use.”
Brady continued and said, “And everyone starts at the same place and you just gotta, there’s no way to do it other than just start working your way up.”
“And that’s what we’re doing now. You can’t get to the top in two days. It’s gonna take a long, you know it’s a long year. It’s a long grind and (everyone of) the guys who make the team, they’ll have earned it. They’ll put us in our best position to be the best team we can be.
Brady also added, “So, I don’t know how that all shakes out, you know. It’s competitive, you know I’m competing everyday. The receivers are, the line is. You know it’s competitive between the defense and we’ve gotta, you know if we want to be the best team we can be, we gotta compete as hard as we can and see how that competition shakes out.”
McGinest: “And I know you never reflect and never kind of look in the past and talk about it because we’re conditioned not do. But when you’re at the ring ceremony, and you’re putting on the six rings, and you’re sitting back with the family and you are spending some quality time just not doing anything football wise. Do you kind of think about how surreal this whole process has been? And I know the story’s not done, you’re still writing it. But do you just kind of sit back and reflect of how, like, amazing this run has been?”
Brady: “I think yeah, I think for all of us. I mean, if we all look back at our life we can’t imagine, you know, how far we’ve come. You growing up in Southern Cal and me growing up in Northern Cal, I never imagined playing one year of pro football. You know, it was a dream to play, to be the starting quarterback on my high school team, and then I tried to do everything I could to start for Michigan. And then I got here, and I was like, ‘Man, I’m gonna work just like I worked before to try and be the starting quarterback for the Patriots.’”
Brady also said, “And I think that’s the approach I still take, you know. Nothing is given in this game. And in a team sport if you’re not the best, you gotta give the pedestal to someone else. And I gotta prove that I’m the best to myself. I gotta prove that I’m the best to my teammates and coaches so I can earn the respect of those guys.”
There was more to this interview but this was the portion McGinest posted on his Twitter.
Photo via NFL.com
Story by Chad Jones
Follow Chad on Twitter @shutupchadjones
