You Want to Argue Football With Gisele?

Comments from Tom Brady’s supermodel spouse spark an uproar in the NFL—because they point to an uncomfortable truth

she said her husband, the New England Patriots superstar quarterback Tom Brady, had suffered a concussion during his team’s 2016 Super Bowl-winning season. She said more than that, really: Bündchen appeared to suggest that Brady had suffered concussions regularly over the course of his career.

“He had a concussion last year,” Bündchen said. “I mean, he has concussions pretty much…we don’t talk about it, but he does have concussions.”

.. but whom do you believe the most?

Yeah, I thought so.

Bündchen’s absolutely the rational voice here. Of course she is. What incentive does she possibly have to misrepresent her husband’s health? To Charlie Rose, during, of all things, an interview about a friend’s book on global warming?

.. it is hard to envision a more charmed-looking life than Brady’s and Bündchen’s. Brady is one of the greatest NFL players of all time, a five-time Super Bowl winner, a luxury pitchman who just signed a deal to endorse Aston-Martins. Bündchen is probably even more famous around the world

.. the aftermath almost never falls to the league, the team, or the representation. It is the family—and often, very specifically, the spouse—who are the front lines

.. Football is a volatile workplace in which most contracts aren’t guaranteed—teams claim they could not afford to do guaranteed deals in a sport where injury is common. How does that not incentivize the masking of injuries?

.. A few years ago, Brady’s father Tom Sr. gave an interview in which he said he’d be “very hesitant” to let his son play were he a kid coming up today

Charlie Rose: Maureen Down on 2016 Election

Columnist Maureen Down introduces her new book, “The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics.”

6 min: Trump doesn’t believe what he says.  He’s a salesman.

 

.. So, I said to him, why do you think voters would vote for you? And he said because I get good ratings on Larry King, or more precisely, because I get the best ratings on Larry King. So, even then it was ratings. And then he said, you know, because a lot of men hit on Melania. So, he was saying he had that ego arithmetic that he uses. The numbers are sentinels of his success. And that has not changed. He still, you know, even on TV this week, he was giving the number, the high number of his testosterone count as an example.

.. he’s completely changed. Because he was this sort of bling king, white rapper, greed is good, kind of New York liberal. So you have these two New York Democrats running against each other. But now, he is either pretending to be or has morphed into an all-right, you know, anti-abortion

—06:13Charlie Rose: And you think that is genuine.

06:15Maureen Dowd: — anti-gun control. No. I don’t think any of it is genuine. I think he is a salesman trying to make the sale at any given moment. So, he will say what he needs to do to make that sale, like any good real estate salesman.

.. On that, how is she different from her husband?

08:30 Maureen Dowd: I don’t think he, in all of these cases for the last quarter century, he is not the one who wants to hunker down and demonize opponents and fight the press. You know, he goes along with that if she insists. But George Stephanopoulos, you know, said that if he could get a genie out of a bottle and change one thing it would just be to give “The Washington Post” the Whitewater papers, and it would have been over in a week. You know, but instead, it led to like seven independentcounsels and the taxpayers paid $80 million that led to impeachment.

.. People who come here and talk about this all thetime, you know, talk about — this election will be decided bywhether it is a referendum on him or a referendum on her.

.. Yes, and so, then, she loyally waits her turnand works for Barack Obama. And then, you know, this time comes and she is again almost usurped, but this time by this cranky 74-year-old socialist. I mean, what are the odds? Who got —

.. Because he thinks, he said to me, I can go find — give me two weeks and I can go find out what it is with the working men and women in America, what it is with the people on the assembly lines who tend to want to support Trump, what it’s about. And can reason with them and explain my wife to them.

18:34Maureen Dowd: Right.

18:34Charlie Rose: And I believe he believes that because he had todo that for Barack Obama at the convention in 2012.

18:39Maureen Dowd: Yes, amazingly, right. Because Barack Obama, as it turned out, doesn’t like politics.

..  I start out kind of totally in the tulip craze of Barack Obama in 2008. But I do think that he wanted to be a transformational president.And I think he wasn’t because as James Carville said, it’s like Peyton Manning not liking football. Or Neera Tanden said, it’s like Bill Gates not liking computers.

29:25Charlie Rose: Technology.

29:26 Maureen Dowd: Yeah, I mean he’s the president but somehow.

29:29 Charlie Rose: But he doesn’t — it’s not that he — I don’t think it is that he doesn’t like it. I think he likes it. I just don’t think he likes some of the aspects of it.

29:36 Maureen Dowd: He doesn’t like being a salesman and that’s why he let Bill Clinton who likes being a salesman —

29:41 Charlie Rose: Explain.

29:42 Maureen Dowd: Yes, his health care.

29:43 Charlie Rose: But I do — I mean, I asked him about this,President Obama, and he said, that’s not true, I do like politics.He just doesn’t like what some people think is essential to be in politics. He doesn’t like the stroking. He doesn’t like the inane conversation. He doesn’t like those kind of things.

29:58 Maureen Dowd: But that’s what helps you pass your gun control bill.

.. But do you think he understands Americanvalues, is the question?

33:15 Maureen Dowd: I don’t think he understands what he is doing.All he’s doing is trying to make the deal in the moment. And in his head, he thinks, he said to me, you know, I asked him about this. He said Maureen, you know I’m not racist, but you arewhat you say at the microphone. He is responsible for that.

33:33 Charlie Rose: But does he acknowledge that? He is saying to you, look, ignore what I say.