Tom Brady is standing on the beach delivering his annual retirement speech on television and an assortment of other electronic locations.
“Good morning, guys, I’ll get to the point right away,” Brady says, standing in the sand of Surfside Beach, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. “I’m retiring for good. I know the process was a pretty big deal last time, so when I woke up this morning, I figured I’d just press the button and let you guys know first.
“So, I won’t be long-winded. Etc. Etc.”
We have been privy to this information for 10 days now, and it has been bashed around every day since.
But just to make certain his words were not missed, Brady issued another video. In this one, Brady appeared nearly bare in his underwear. Or as one website described the scene, “in nude underwear.”
He is sitting on the side of a bed, the bay windows defrocked, a palm tree and the ocean in the background. It is all captured on a gizmo on my telephone.
Between football and his multi-millions as a Fox television analyst, Brady is confirming that he is becoming a skivvies peddler.
Obviously, Brady, now 45, is skipping the Super Bowl this year.
So, he’s upstaging it.
Alas, after Brady’s baring of his thoughts were disseminated, Aaron Rodger had his own pronouncement. Aaron, as we well know, is mulling retirement from the Packers. Or, perhaps going along with a multi-rumored trade from Green Bay.
Rodgers, now 39, has announced to flex his brain he will enter a darkness retreat for four days. He says that he will isolate himself in pitch blackness to think.
“… I think it’s important to get through this week and take my isolation retreat and just be able to contemplate all things about my future and then make a decision,” Rodgers explains to ESPN’s audience on The Pat McAfee Show, “and then make a decision I feel is best for me moving forward in the highest interest of my happiness, etc., etc.”
In his darkness retreat, Rodgers now seems intent on not only upstaging the Super Bowl. He wants to upstage Tom Brady.
Alas, there are more entrepreneurial motives this week, as I skip my first in-person Super Bowl after being on the scene for the first 56.
For those who are truly pining for a Super Bowl LVII souvenir, true, honest-to-goodness NFL ground is on the market. South Florida has become the site of the Great American Sand Rush.
Several marketeers hustled to the actual spot where Brady dug his toes and issued his retirement decree. Folks arrived with shovels and jars — unlike those we took to the beach as kids — and located the spot of the retirement announcement.
Then, they started digging up the sand and pouring it into the jars.
The glass jars, with the authentic, genuine Tom Brady-Retirement Location-Sand are now on sale on eBay. A variety of prices is included, according to my survey.
These prices run from around 10 bucks to $13,999.00.
However, carrying on with Brady — we may envision peace in our time.
Brady and Bill Belichick have become cuddly again. As the Super Bowl media hordes (less one) were arriving in Phoenix this past Monday, the great coach was the great quarterback’s guest on Brady’s weekly “Let’s Go” podcast, as moderated by sportscaster Jim Gray on Sirius Radio.
“We really had a good relationship,” Belichick said, “especially in the film room, and talking football and all that.
“That I’ll always treasure and I learned so much from. Because nobody sees the game better than Tom Brady sees it — or saw it — and I was so lucky to learn from him and his vision.
“No other coach will get that experience. I mean, it was incredible.”
All those Super Bowls from New Orleans to Minneapolis to Phoenix being snapped at for my insipid questions, and now I discover Bill Belichick speaks mush.
“For me, there’s nobody I’d rather be associated with,” Brady says in response of the podcast. “From my standpoint, it’s always been such a stupid conversation to say, ‘Brady vs. Belichick,’ because in my mind, that’s not what a partnership is supposed to be about…
“I don’t think we ever felt like that with each other.”
All this is important stuff. I know, because I’m writing about it.
In other quarterback news, both the Chiefs and Eagles will start Super Bowl Sunday with QBs of color, a first.
And also, it marks a generational shift among NFL quarterbacks.
Pro football is becoming a kids’ game.
Patrick Mahomes is 27 and headed to his third Super Bowl with the Chiefs. The Eagles’ Jalen Hurts is 24.
They were toddlers in 2002 when Brady took the Patriots in their historic drive with 90 seconds to play — with no more timeouts — to a 20-17 victory in Super Bowl XXXVI. No. 1 of his seven victories, first of his 10 Super Bowls.
Brady, then, was a stripling of 25.
Now, he shoves is toes into the Florida sand. Prospectors bring shovels to scoop it up, as though they’re digging for gold.
Hear ‘ye!
Oh, more about sand. Hurry, to obtain the sand to pour through during the Super Bowl.
Shipping and handling added!
Jerry Green is a retired Detroit News sports reporter.