Paddle-Tossing Tom Brady
May 18th, 2020
Doesn’t just throw footballs
The fierce, compulsively competitive nature of Tom Brady has been talked about and documented in many ways.
Today, a new anecdote was tossed out by a former Patriots beat writer.
Current SI.com columnist Albert Breer shared a look today at how Brady is a next-level winner obsessed with competition. Joe enjoyed the story and laughed thinking of the legions of Bucs fans who thought too much ping-pong play among Bucs players was a factor in why Tampa Bay was losing under Dirk Koetter.
… And in the spirit of all these [Michael] Jordan stories coming to light, I’ve got a good one on Brady. Apparently, No. 12 saw himself to be a pretty good ping-pong player. But Danny Amendola was fantastic. So after Amendola signed with the Patriots in 2013, the two talked trash with each other over it, and then wound up playing. Amendola wound up winning, and winning pretty handily. As the story goes, Amendola hammered home the last point, and barely could turn around before he heard this whistling go by his ear. Brady’s paddle had come in hot and just missed him. Amendola, I’d heard, looked up expecting to see Brady laughing. Instead, he was getting the death stare. And Amendola—who’d become a trusted target of Brady’s, and Super Bowl hero in his own right—learned a good lesson about Brady that day.
On some level, though it’s very different, this story reminded Joe of Aqib Talib swinging his helmet on the practice field at teammate Torrie Cox and instead hitting bystander Donald Penn.
It also makes Joe wonder again how Brady, feeling the pressure of his age and new surroundings, is going to react to his new teammates the minute he gets a whiff of a mentality that doesn’t rival what he’s used to in New England.
Fun times ahead.
May 18th, 2020 at 12:59 pm
Paddle-tossing…..guess that will be added to the nicknames….
May 18th, 2020 at 1:04 pm
Brady and Arians are a great match for that reason: they are both red asses. Meaning they are both fiery competitors who will yell, express a temper, all in the name of competition. This is just what the doctor ordered. Accountability and implementing a culture. This is exciting.
May 18th, 2020 at 1:04 pm
I hope Tom goes full Tom.
#JustWinBaby
May 18th, 2020 at 1:05 pm
TBBF…I hope so.
I hope it gets a mile long, like Peter King’s
May 18th, 2020 at 1:06 pm
SteveK…maybe they should try and get GMC back so they all can have ice cream together someday.
May 18th, 2020 at 1:07 pm
Just goes to show why Brady and Jordan were hyper winners. They both despise losing at anything far more than they enjoy winning.
May 18th, 2020 at 1:22 pm
Brady is pretty accurate……surprise he missed….
May 18th, 2020 at 1:24 pm
Buc1987,
Gerald was a solid player, and an even nicer human being. Unfortunately, he lacks the “dog” or some of the “nasty” one would like to see in a DT. Lol good point!
It’s going from “everyone gets a participation trophy” to “we ain’t done squat”. Excited for the culture transformation. This teak has some talent, just need depth. Veteran minimum depth that wants to play with Brady.
May 18th, 2020 at 1:34 pm
This excites me. After the month long the Bucs are awesome talk you knew the media would shift gears and now say the Bucs can’t and Brady is washed up. I like that this negative talk putting chips on Brady’s shoulder.
May 18th, 2020 at 1:53 pm
He is just letting him know…. if you beat me again I will kill you. A very primal competing level.
May 18th, 2020 at 1:56 pm
I always wondered why Amendola wore his helmut to play ping pong.
May 18th, 2020 at 1:59 pm
It also makes Joe wonder again how Brady, feeling the pressure of his age and new surroundings, is going to react to his new teammates the minute he gets a whiff of a mentality that doesn’t rival what he’s used to in New England.
___________________________________________________
went straight to the negative in JBF fashion
May 18th, 2020 at 2:12 pm
So at this point we should start expecting the preamble to be “Park Violating, Home Invading, Paddle Tossing QB Tom Brady”
Correct?
May 18th, 2020 at 2:14 pm
Howard, unfortunately you may be accurate. Hopefully Tom doesn’t also watch Ozark or like yams…
May 18th, 2020 at 3:00 pm
If only the same adjective-laden title followed Joe’s former “America’s QB”. It would be interesting to compare a similar application of facts. Alas, it won’t happen most likely, but it would be great to see equally applied logic by Joe in this regard. Either way, great site.
May 18th, 2020 at 4:05 pm
Allegedly…..seeing the way you cover Brady kind of exposes you he hypocrisy of the way Winston was covered. bucs don’t know how to win and apparently that’s affected your writing skills big time
May 18th, 2020 at 4:14 pm
Remember talib wizzing bullets past a guy
You know from his gun?
That was awesome
May 18th, 2020 at 5:48 pm
Hats Off to Talib, for smacking that Cab driver who was rude to him upside the head.
May 18th, 2020 at 9:34 pm
Ok, so if these highly-competitive guys didn’t use this type of motivation and win, they would just be called sore losers, right?
As much as we praise the few that excel with their “highly competitive” nature, there are literally mine fields of carcasses of sore losers who couldn’t win with the same approach.
Reality distortion.
May 18th, 2020 at 9:36 pm
Meant to say, “If these highly competitive guys used this type of motivation and didn’t win, they would just be called sore losers, right?”
May 18th, 2020 at 10:41 pm
My daddy said 2nd place is 1st loser
-Ricky Bobby’s son