Man in the Arena (2021) s01e08 Episode Script

1
And for the fourth time in seven years,
Super Bowl, here we come.
When you're in successful places,
you know, a lot of people
tried to tear us apart.
They're pretty bad.
They just don't have the players.
The end.
You know, we had all gotten,
I think, spoiled.
We did it, Josh.
The greatest comeback
in Super Bowl history.
Sometimes when you
have a lot going for you,
you nitpick about things
that are relatively unimportant.
There were some
audible boos coming from the crowd.
They're still not getting it done.
The New England Patriots are defunct.
You know, there's no longer the ability
to sell stories saying, you know,
"Oh, they won another game."
People need the drama.
I have a lot of conversations
with him, so
Those are private between he and I.
People need the
"Real Housewives" conversations,
and I think, you know, that's
so much of what things became
in a very short period of time
because there was people
creating division.
You kind of feel like
he's hiding something
or he doesn't want to
divulge some information.
Would you say that was true?
I said I don't want to get into it.
Things were good, but, you know,
well, why not nitpick at certain things
that, you know, are chickenshit?
In the end, it just doesn't matter.
♪♪
Football has been
that meditative place for me in my life.
I think it's been a place where I knew
that I could control what the outcome was.
You know, I'm the one
with the ball in my hands.
I ultimately have the last decision
whether to snap the ball or not,
what play we're in.
That's a very comforting place for me,
and it's been that way for a long time.
That locker room has been a place
for the last 30 years of my life
that has been surrounded by all my friends
doing stuff we love to do,
and I feel like in a lot of ways,
we never had to grow up.
You didn't have to take on
all the issues of the world.
Part of it is nourishing
your soul in a way,
because the football field for me
is the one place I can go
that I can be myself
and be in the present.
And then when you leave that,
man, we all got different lives, you know.
Everyone is going home
to a different life.
Some people have kids.
Some people don't have kids.
You know, some people
are going home to family issues,
friend issues, you know.
Whatever it is, you know, everyone's got
their shit, you know.
'cause it's their life.
Tom Brady was down 28-3.
We gotta play tougher.
Harder, tougher, everything.
It is the greatest comeback
in the history of the Super Bowl.
This was it, I concede.
I have nothing to say.
It's the greatest performance
I've ever seen.
He's the
greatest quarterback of all time.
Over his career, he has done
nothing but win football games.
He is the Michael Jordan of football.
The beginning of the 2017 offseason
I was still so singularly
focused on football,
but there were off-field things
that were happening
in terms of work and business
that were exciting for me
because they were
beginning to really grow.
And I wanted to support those things
because they were very much part
of what, you know, my goals were.
To teach people kind of
the things that I've learned.
You know, I had so much
information I wanted to share
beyond my playing career.
So Tom Brady's trainer
is Alex Guerrero,
and they met years and years ago,
and they've been inseparable.
He has unconventional methods.
There was a turning point
in our relationship
where I was recommended surgery in 2008,
and we decided against it.
I'd worked with Alex for three days
and essentially got rid of the problem.
That experience I had
just decided I was gonna be
holistic and natural with all
my recovery and rehabilitation.
A lot of the trainers,
doctors for the Patriots
don't buy into Tommy's guru.
People thought I was always full of shit
and I couldn't play this long
and my methods were crazy
and the way that I was training was crazy.
You know,
"Band workouts never work," you know?
Or "What are you
talking about, pliability?
I don't even know what that word is."
Alex and I have found
an amazing relationship
not only as business partners,
but way more than that.
As a brother, as a confidant.
Tom Brady's personal guru
is a glorified snake oil salesman, right?
He and Brady are going into business,
hawking their wares, which is a lot of BS.
It's all, you know, nonsense.
I never really gave much energy
to those words.
I just never wanted to
give much power to them.
That feels good.
'Cause the reality
of it is at the end of the day,
I knew that Tom knew who I was.
I know who I am.
That force gets transferred evenly
And so we worked together, much like
what a coach and a player would do.
It's a really good partnership.
You know,
you have a football coach.
He was a body coach.
He was someone that took care of my body.
And there wasn't
one thing to describe him.
And my relationship, I mean,
how we've grown together,
we have a bond that's unbreakable.
You know,
we deal with his physical body.
We deal with his emotional body.
We deal with his, you know,
mental/spiritual body.
The idea is to find harmony
or balance, right?
It's the balance between yin and yang.
We try to help people understand
the values of what traditional
Chinese medicine can bring
and what Western medicine can bring.
And you meld those two together,
seeing the body as a whole:
physical, emotional, mental, spiritual.
I've been extremely fortunate.
I have a lot of wonderful people
that have come into my life
that have moved this forward for me.
I had met Willie McGinest,
and I was coming out to New England
at the time to see Willie.
Willie gave me the opportunity
and the consciousness
and the awakening of
okay, there's a different
way than some people do it.
One day,
Willie's, like, "Hey, you know what?
Tom Brady's gonna
to come over to the house.
Can you see him?
He's got some elbow issue."
I'm, like, "Sure. No problem."
And we worked on his elbow
and spent three days together.
We've grown together
through a lot of amazing moments,
challenging moments.
After the 2008 season
when he tore his ACL,
you know, he was out in LA
and we were doing the rehab,
and it was most of the day.
When you're laying on a table,
you've got a lot of
personal time with someone.
I think they get to know you really well.
And I think it's nice to have
someone that you can trust implicitly
that you're with and connected to,
and you know that it doesn't
go any further than their ears.
Our personalities really matched,
and so we're always looking for ways
to improve on what we're doing.
If this is good, then what's better?
And if this is better, what's best?
There's basically no precedent
for a quarterback to play
at the level that Tom Brady did
beyond the age of 40,
which is what Tom Brady
turns in less than a month.
Tom Brady may be starting the slow slide,
the slow decline at age 40.
Even the great Hank Aaron,
he sort of fell off the cliff.
I was going into
a really unprecedented time.
I was going into being 40 years old.
Brady is about to hit the cliff
like everyone else who's ever lived.
There was more talk
about him falling off the cliff
than his ability to perform,
and that really drove us.
All right. Well, I'll just go show 'em.
I'll go prove 'em wrong again.
They didn't learn their lesson
last year, obviously,
or they didn't learn their
lesson the year before that,
or they didn't learn
their lesson year before that.
I often hear
people will say, you know,
Tom's like a cyborg,
or he's not built like everybody else.
It's just who Tom Brady is.
And my answer to that is, like, no.
♪♪
- What? What?
- Yeah.
Tom bleeds and he cuts and he breaks
and he gets bruises and bumps
just like everybody else does.
He just works really hard
at recovering from those things.
Let me ask you this quickly.
If Tom Brady stays healthy
and is able to start all 16 games,
is there any reason this team
can't be better than it was last year?
- No, no.
- I think we fully expect them
to be better than they were last year.
Wow. All right.
This roster is
built to win the Super Bowl,
and I think they'll get there.
We had a great team in 2016.
That was probably one of
the most talented teams
I've ever been on.
In 2017, we had very much the same team.
We had a damn good football team.
You know, Gronk was there.
Gronk was healthy.
♪♪
I always thought the NFL was, you know,
catch a touchdown, you party.
I'm Rob Gronkowski.
I am Tom Brady's teammate.
I'm his tight end,
if you know what I mean.
I'm a guy that blocks for him,
catches his balls.
He's my quarterback.
I love being out there with Gronk.
He's as tough as they come.
He does all the dirty work.
He's a matchup nightmare.
He is.
How are you going to stop him?
You're not gonna stop him.
He's gonna make his plays.
To build up chemistry with a quarterback
takes a lot of work, takes a lot of time.
That was unbelievable.
How the did you catch that?
Gronk was very much
the linchpin of our offense.
Gronk, you got the post up.
Just like we worked on last week.
He knows where
I'm gonna be on the field.
I know where he's gonna put the ball.
We practice so many times with each other.
You can't just substitute in
anyone for Rob Gronkowski.
Gronkowski has a step,
has a touchdown, Patriots!
The early days,
like when I was a rookie, second year,
it was just all about grinding, you know.
Get out there and just work,
work, work, work, work.
And Tom was, you know, just on point.
Like, just acting like a coach. I mean
You made a good decision on that.
They squeezed you both ways.
What is that word I'm looking for?
- Uptight?
- Yeah, uptight.
There you go. That was easy.
I don't think I was uptight.
I just was, you know,
expecting him to do the job the right way.
I just felt like, you know,
it just totally wasn't my style.
I don't even know how I did that.
Because I was trying to be out there
and have some fun with it.
When I was
first drafted with the Patriots,
right there on the stage,
I just started losing my mind,
like jumping up and down,
putting the helmet on.
Aah!
And I would say it started there.
When we drafted Gronk,
Wes called me, like, "Did you see
what he did on the stage," you know?
"That was crazy with his brothers."
The party boy/playmaker Rob Gronkowski.
All the older guys were looking at me
like, "Man, Rob's crazy.
Like, you're just
getting away with everything."
And I'm, like,
"Dawg, like, I'm just doing me."
Big bad Gronk coming.
The Hulk.
You know, Gronk does things his way,
and everybody that gets to be
in the presence of Gronk
feels that same energy.
But I would say
I was getting away with it, though, too,
because I was showing up every day.
When you're putting
the work in at practice,
you're making the plays
and you can do whatever.
I just had that mindset
right from the beginning.
- Could make a play.
- I ran that last year.
Gronk now has a chance
to become the highest paid tight end
in the NFL in 2017, but he's gotta play.
He's gotta produce to earn it.
Unfortunately,
he has a history of back injuries.
Going back to 2009,
he missed a ton of time.
2013, missed a little time.
Third go-around with back surgery,
back injuries.
Oh, man, I broke my forearm.
You know he's 6' 7", 265.
Then I broke it again when
I came back for the playoffs.
When people hit him, they hit him low.
They're not hitting him high.
They're gonna hit him low.
And then it got infected,
so I had a couple more surgeries on it.
And when he falls, he's falling hard.
I've had three back surgeries,
microdiscectomies.
It's extremely violent
for a player his size.
I had a bad sprained ankle
that I had surgery on,
and I had surgery on my ACL/MCL.
Gronk is a shell of himself.
Yes, he is.
Rob Gronkowski is basically Frankenstein.
They're piecing him together
so he can get on the field and compete.
When you're beat up,
when you're shot,
that's when the game
can take a toll on you.
Gronk had a really tough 2016 season.
He hurts his hamstring in training camp.
Plays a little bit.
Has four really dominant games,
and then has a back injury.
Has to have another surgery.
Rob had some issues,
and I remember Tom brought him in
to get some work done.
Basically said, "Tom,
I just wanna do what you're doing.
I just wanna"
you know, "I wanna feel good.
I'm tired of all these back injuries."
Everybody's injury is unique to them
because they would be
thinking something different
at the time of their injury,
or they would be having a different,
you know, family dynamic situation
at the time of the injury.
So there's a lot of different emotions
that come into play
when you're helping an athlete
get through a physical ailment.
You gotta learn ways
to be able to get over those humps
and enjoy the game again.
Really committed himself
to eating different foods
and getting more treatment
and, you know, making sure his back
was in a good place
so he can continue his,
you know, his football journey.
We talked about
this is what you can do to transition
from, you know, this type of workout
to this type of workout,
and he bought in.
You feel like the work with Alex Guerrero
has helped you?
Yes, for sure.
- Less sore? Less anything?
- Yes.
Anything specific? Just yes?
Yes.
We get it started tonight in Foxborough,
where the Pats hang up another banner.
You know, any time
you're the Super Bowl champ,
you kind of have this offseason
where you feel like, well,
it'll just be just like last year.
Let's just run it back, you know,
do the same thing,
and we'll end up being champs again
because we won it last year.
And that's not the way it works.
Alex Smith out of the shotgun.
Zings it for the end zone.
Caught! Touchdown!
Up the middle.
Touchdown, Patriots!
"Oh, don't worry.
The Patriots are at home.
We never lose at home.
We never lose against AFC teams at home."
In, like, the middle of the third quarter,
we just went flat and they turned it on.
And the season opener,
we got our ass kicked.
A significant dose of reality.
That second half was a complete beatdown.
We had it handed to us on our own field.
And, you know, the only people
that can do something about it
are in that locker room.
And we gotta dig a lot deeper
than we did tonight,
'cause we didn't dig very deep tonight.
I didn't feel the fight in us.
I remember going to
the locker room after the game,
and I was pretty fired up.
Like, this isn't the way it's gonna be.
You know, we're not dealing with this shit
for the rest of the year.
When you play the New England Patriots,
what do you say coming into the game?
They're gonna be well-coached,
they're gonna be disciplined,
they're gonna be at the right place
when they are supposed to be there.
Not this team.
I believe they'll get it figured out,
but right now it's bad. It's a bad look.
The beginning of the season was,
"Oh, who are The Pats playing in
the AFC Championship this year?"
No one really cares
what happens in October and September.
You know, "Who do you think
will be in the Super Bowl with the Pats?"
Which, you know, there's a lot
of work that goes into that.
I think a lot of people
take those things for granted.
The New England Patriots
are going to be just fine
because by virtue of
the division that they play in,
they'll be in the postseason by default.
I think everyone got a little entitled.
The last time we threw dirt on 'em,
guess who was the problem?
Tom Brady.
Boy, this is a team that we were asking
by how much will they go 16-0?
Very Patriots start.
You know, get off to a slow start.
Figure out what we're not good at.
They were the best odds-on favorite
in my memory heading into an NFL season.
Losing's tough,
but I think on the field
we were getting to be
better and better and better
as the season went on.
It was a tough season.
It was a grind season for sure.
Let me tell you, it wasn't
really that fun of a year.
It was just a little eerie,
the atmosphere, uh, with the Patriots.
And every day felt like there was
some type of dark cloud
over what we were trying to accomplish,
for one reason or another.
We all agree on reputation,
but not in fact so far.
They just haven't been
the Patriots so far.
And then, uh, we were
in the middle of the season
when it happened.
The New England Patriots
have traded quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
With Jimmy being traded and
You know, I think
a lot of people were confused.
It is all on Brady
for the foreseeable future.
Jimmy was gonna become a free agent,
and there was value
in getting a pick for Jimmy.
There was unfortunately
a lot of false narratives
that were being spread
about his relationship,
my relationship,
or how that all went down.
I believe Coach Belichick,
win, lose or draw,
was ready to move on without Tom Brady.
He was threatened by Jimmy Garoppolo.
It was just drama,
and it was just soap opera stuff.
Belichick wanted to clearly
have a succession plan
to give it to Garoppolo.
Tom Brady interfered,
and it will cost the Patriots.
I think people are tired
of the Patriots winning every year.
People don't care that
it's hard to win every year.
They just wanna see someone else win.
Even though
we were being very successful,
even though I was playing great,
it didn't matter
because I was still dealing
with the constant negativity.
But it's unclear as to why Tom
doesn't want to answer questions.
Obviously he's probably
answered a bunch in the past,
and he's kind of fed up at this point.
The media were gonna cause division,
make people take sides.
Every thought, it seems to me,
is bent on winning the Super Bowl,
but he doesn't quite
take a stand, does he?
I think the noise was just getting louder.
The Patriots
are headed to the White House,
but quarterback Tom Brady
was a surprising no-show.
Their best quality is
they tune out the noise
better than anyone.
This has been
the loudest offseason for them.
The loudest, and the elephant
is bigger than ever
that's in the room.
So even though you block it out,
it'll be louder to make sure you hear it.
I'm not getting into any of that.
And like I said, I speak for myself.
Choose a side. Choose a side.
What do you stand for?
What do you believe in?
Do you agree with it?
Do you not agree with it?
You're gonna do this.
You're gonna do that.
What does this mean to you?
You can never expect Tom Brady
to give an answer.
But our team was very unified.
You know, we're all in a good place
and we're all supporting one another.
We wanna support the guys
that we love and care about,
we wanna go to battle with,
and we were responsive to the actions
that guys wanted to be a part of
or didn't want to be a part of.
He's a guy who is someone
who's really a man of the locker room.
You know, more and more I think the joy
was being taken away
because it wasn't about
my football performance anymore.
It was about so many other things.
What is your reaction?
I'm just gonna talk about the game.
I think people
always use the word humanize.
"Oh, you're such a human.
I'm, like, no fucking shit I'm a human.
- And the cheating scandal.
- Spygate.
More in favor of the status quo.
Everybody was saying the same damn thing.
And they didn't win the right way.
Isn't it fun?
Everyone feels like they're entitled
to everybody's thoughts
and opinions all the time.
Mind your own fucking business.
You know what I mean?
Like
Do we have any fight? Are we gonna fight?
Or are we gonna lay down?
The emotion of the game
where you see, you know,
an angry Tom comes out on the field
or the gritty Tom comes out on the field,
or the determined Tom
comes out on the field,
I think his ability to play
with joy on any given Sunday
is really based on his ability to find joy
the week leading up to the game.
The emotional aspect
was very challenging.
It was very fatiguing.
That was huge. We needed a win
like that, and you know it.
There's a lot of guys, including myself,
that just weren't really
having a good time.
We would just show up
to show up, go out to practice.
I mean, we did what we needed to do.
We were winning games still.
That's Gronkowski along the sideline.
It definitely was taking a toll on me.
That was a time
where Gronk was getting called
for a lot of penalties.
Every time Gronk would touch someone,
they would throw a flag on Gronk.
Pass interference, number 87.
I would do, like, a little push-off,
and they would throw a flag on me.
So I was like, huh?
But then at the same time,
they could drape their arms all over him
and not get called for any penalties.
I got no help.
The referee is like,
yeah, you're just bigger,
so we're just gonna let it be,
Our own team started, you know,
getting on Gronk for that,
and Gronk's,
"I'm just trying to play ball."
All over Gronkowski.
And then finally, you know,
in that Buffalo Bills game.
I was just getting held again,
Going in on the end route, I got held.
Coming back out, held me.
And boom. There was no flag.
White's definitely holding Gronk.
- That wasn't called.
- Then he's holding him again
and then gets away with it.
Just right there, I just lost it.
And, like, right when I was going down
I was like
Oh, shoot. Like,
"I shouldn't be doing this."
Like, I swear, when
I was going down, I let up.
White intercepted a pass from Tom Brady,
and Gronk ran toward White,
dove into his head,
and it resulted in the rookie corner
being placed in concussion protocol.
I was just
really frustrated at that moment.
It just happened naturally
through emotions and frustration,
and just wanna apologize
to Tre'Davious White.
Emotion has to come out at some point.
On a football field,
there's so much emotion anyway,
and aggressive emotion,
it wasn't surprising to me
that that emotion came out.
We'll debate what punishment
the league should level against Gronk.
I think in the beginning
he'll definitely be suspended.
Gronk with an egregious cheap shot.
Well, they should definitely suspend him.
I just got suspended a week.
I was happy. I was finally happy.
I was, like, yes, I'm away
from football for a week.
I get to recover my body.
I mean, when you're running
full speed into people,
definitely was taking a toll on me.
Football, such a grind week in, week out.
It is physical. It's violent.
And you're just running
full speed at people and
you need to recover from football,
and that's what a lot of people
don't understand out there.
You know, it's just grind, grind, grind.
You know, I lost a paycheck.
I lost a game check.
And it was about $300,000,
that game check.
I didn't even care one bit.
I was just glad
I had a week off from football
because I needed it.
We spent every day
during his suspension together.
You know, if I was, you know, practicing,
I'd be practicing three days, full speed.
Like, I didn't need that.
I don't need to be
grinding my body into the dirt.
It wasn't just helping him
through his physical issues.
It was also talking to him
through some of the,
you know, mental, emotional
things that he was experiencing.
It's tough for him,
but tough for everyone, too,
what he's capable of doing on the field
when he's healthy and excited.
I was so beat down from the season.
I was like, I'm good.
Rob is much more close-knitted
to the emotion of joy
than other athletes are.
So when you can bring out
and make it a joyful experience for him,
you will get his best.
He makes the biggest difference
when you look at the success
New England's had against Pittsburgh,
Gronk's been the number one weapon.
I got to remember that I was Gronk again.
You know, started feeling fresh,
started feeling confident
about myself again,
and went out there to the Steelers game.
Just telling everyone
I was already gonna ball out
before the game even started.
New England-Pittsburgh.
At long last, week 15
in the Steel City has arrived.
And then what happened?
Brady stands and throws it
down the left side for Gronkowski.
He was ready to take over.
Just another moment
for him to show his greatness.
I'm catching fade routes.
I'm catching slants.
And I was trying to get him the ball
every possible time that I could.
I'm just catching everything
Tom's throwing me.
When he's determined,
you know, he's a force.
That was a game I was in the zone,
and when you're in the zone,
I feel like I can do anything.
No one can tackle me.
Just that thrill of having
not just one guy, two guys,
three guys trying to take you down.
I mean, they couldn't stop him.
And I remember
I did my favorite first down celebration.
Makes the grab at the 40.
I was on my back,
and I just went like that.
I re-watched that, like, five times,
and every time, I just die laughing at it.
And on the final drive of the game,
I was still feeling fresh.
I still had energy flowing.
I threw one ball that, I mean,
he must have caught
one inch from the ground.
What an amazing catch.
For a guy that size? Come on.
Tom hit me, like, three passes in a row
down the field.
Made play after play.
He had a two-point conversion.
Holy
What a game, baby.
What a game. What a game.
I love you, man.
Awesome.
Hey, how about that? Let's go!
Gronkowski is
the best tight end in the game.
This is the best receiver on this team.
It was the Gronkowski show.
That was great. That was a lot of fun.
Meanwhile, there was
a report in the Boston Globe
that Tom Brady's personal
trainer, Alex Guerrero,
has had his sideline privileges revoked
due to a rift between Guerrero
and head coach Bill Belichick.
Could the NFL's most perfect marriage
be coming to an end?
Apparently divorce
in Foxborough is looming.
How would you describe just the dynamic
with you and Tom in terms
of the working relationship?
Has anything changed this year?
Well, every year is different.
Bill never told you
that he was removing Alex
from the sideline
when the team plays?
I'm not saying anything.
How do you say that he said anything?
You don't know anything about that.
I think we're in such an era of life
where everyone thinks
that they should get to know
everything, you know.
And the reality is, I don't
believe you should, you know.
I think there's things about relationships
that are just private.
When two people have conversations
that are in a private room,
they should remain private.
So I saw the reports this weekend
that he's traveling with the team.
Was he on the sideline on Friday?
Yeah. All right, guys,
Have a great day.
I'll talk to you later.
Two different people in Guerrero's camp
and then the Patriots' training staff
that have difference in philosophies
and how they get guys right.
And I think ultimately
that's what came to a head.
There's a little treatment room back here.
You know, I'd always
gotten my treatments with Alex,
my pliability treatments
in the locker room.
But at that point, you know,
we were having to find
unique places to do it.
I really didn't care where we worked,
to be honest with you, it could be
Whether it was up in a suite
or it was in a broom closet.
We got put
in this, like, maintenance shed,
so I was in there with, like,
the John Deere tractors.
And, you know, I had some
pretty funny laughs with Alex.
Like, it was just just perspective
on kind of how things were changing.
Brady and Gronk both
are aligned with this doctor,
who's not a doctor.
When you work with
a high-profile athlete such as Tom,
he can cast a very large shadow at times.
No one really understands
what it's like to be in that shadow
unless you live it yourself.
So I think there's a lot of assumptions
and it's easy for people to say
things without really knowing.
Not only is Tom getting attacked,
the TB12 method's getting attacked.
That ended up being
the subject of conversation
for so many people about who he was
and what he was capable of doing.
Alex has been a huge part of what I do,
and I'm so fortunate
to have him now as a friend,
but everything that we've
been able to do together.
And Alex has been a, you know,
a huge, huge reason why I'm still playing.
I was very fortunate to have Tom.
I mean, it was really
one of the only ways I made it through.
My wife,
certainly my children,
and Tom.
You know, of course
I'm sticking up for him,
and I know what's in his heart.
I know what he was trying to do:
Help me accomplish
what my goals were, and
Which then helped our team.
I believe that
you should be good and kind.
I believe that you should be forgiving.
Because I believe that
to find joy and happiness in your life,
that you can't sit and wade in the muck.
Any time you're
in 20 years' relationships
with different people,
one year or one experience
doesn't shape my relationship.
And then some relationships got strained,
and that's just that's what they were.
The one thing that I learned from Tom
over the years,
he has an unbelievable way
of being able to not look
in the rearview mirror.
And he's continuously moving forward.
When you're in the middle of the year
and you're going through all this stuff,
it's tough 'cause there's no
light at the end of the tunnel.
You know, football season's tough.
It's a marathon.
When you're in mile 11 of the marathon
and things aren't going all great,
man, it's tough.
But then once you get to the playoffs,
everything that happened
up to that point is gone.
It's the start of a new season,
and the team really comes together.
Welcome to Foxborough's Gillette Stadium
for this AFC Divisional playoff
between the number one seed
in the American Football Conference,
the New England Patriots at 13-3,
and the 9-7 Tennessee Titans.
Let's go! Let's go!
As much bullshit as we dealt with,
we'd still got to the place
that we needed to get to.
And now we're going up against a team
that we had confidence we could beat.
7-0 deficit for New England.
It's a shovel pass to White
in motion to the left.
He's gonna sprint to the pylon,
then dive for a touchdown, Patriots!
You know, went out
and played a great game at home.
Danny played great, Gronk played great.
For a team that was really good
that we were playing against,
went out there
and beat 'em pretty handily.
It wasn't our best,
but it was good, all right?
These are tough to get.
Enjoy this one, all right?
We need our best game next week, fellas.
How you guys doing?
Morning. How's your hand?
Not talking about it.
Thumbs up or thumbs down for Sunday?
We'll see.
We're in practice.
It was a period where we're working on
a lot of different run plays.
Rex thought we were
running the play to the right.
I had changed the play.
We were running the play to the left.
And we ran into each other.
After I handed him the ball,
I felt this immense pain.
The ball got pinched against my body,
and the thumb got bent back so far
that it ripped the skin on my thumb open
from in the web all the way
through the bottom of my thumb.
And I looked down at my hand,
and it was just, like, this bloody palm,
like a pool of blood.
And I was like,
you know, I'm fucked.
You know, that's what I thought, you know,
I thought, that's it.
I was away.
I got a call from the athletic trainer
and said, you know,
Tom just injured his thumb.
You need to get over here.
In my mind, I'm thinking,
okay, injured thumb.
Like, how bad could it be?
So when I got there and saw it,
I thought, "Oh, my gosh."
'Cause it was just,
you know, completely split.
And I remember the look
of just how distraught Tom was.
And he thought, "This is this is it."
Like, "This is the end for me.
This could be completely over."
Wednesday night was a really long night.
Thursday was a long day and night.
It's Thursday. We're four days out.
He didn't take one single snap.
It was funny
'cause the trainer, Jim, said,
"Man, we've come a long way this year.
We're not ending this season
on a handoff."
What was amazing was
the hand got bent back so far
that the skin ripped,
but there was no structural damage.
I didn't end up tearing any ligaments.
Hand doctor came in, did an amazing job.
Then we were able
to get to work and do our thing.
The reality was
am I gonna be able to grip the football?
'Cause I couldn't squeeze it.
Alex was working way overtime
trying to get as much swelling
out of the fat pad in my hand as possible.
By Friday,
when he started to grip the ball
and felt that he could,
he's like, "Okay."
And I can start to see that confidence
to come back in him.
Between the two of us,
we have great understanding
of what we need to do
to get my body to feel
the way it needs to feel.
Understanding we're hearing
what the doctor is saying,
we're hearing what the advice may be,
but also what makes sense for me
based on my knowledge,
the understanding of my body
and what I needed to do.
Basically, you've had a season
where he's missed practice time
due to the Achilles,
he's had a sore shoulder.
Now has the finger,
and it's a long season,
especially for a 40-year-old quarterback.
I wasn't sure I was gonna go.
It was really a game-time moment.
The greatest quarterback of all time
is going into a championship game
against the best defense by far
he will have faced all season,
and he has an injury to his throwing hand?
We the only ones out here!
Everybody else watching us.
Hey, do your job, right?
We don't need to do the impossible.
Let's go down and score, huh?
There was only stitches were on
for four days at this point, you know.
It was still a very open wound.
It was gonna be
an uphill battle, certainly.
Defensively, they had a lot of confidence.
Under pressure.
Tom moves around in the pocket.
Try to dance his way to the left
and he goes down.
The only way to beat
that speed was physicality,
but they were physical, too.
He throws downfield.
Looking for Gronk.
Goes up, makes the catch!
No, the ball was jarred free
as Gronkowski got drilled from behind
by a safety.
Barry Church, pretty big guy.
You know, he got
a pretty good piece of me.
Get up. Get up, Gronk.
Cheap shot. Gronkowski is not right.
We go into the second half of that game
without Gronk, and we were losing.
I've watched him play
a lot of football over the years,
and I'm nervous and anxious
from the very start of the game
until the very end of the game,
but losing Gronk is tough.
I was just dazed a little bit.
It wasn't a major, major concussion,
but it was the
AFC Championship Game, you know.
It sucks to get knocked out,
and, you know, miss the second half,
but let me tell you, man,
the boys picked it up.
Brady shuffles left,
throws down the middle
and a catch is made
at the 46 yard line by Amendola.
Play off Dola right there.
Catch by Amendola!
Turns to the outside,
dives to the end zone!
It was unbelievable
what they did in the second half.
And New England has taken the lead!
It was still
a tough atmosphere, I feel like.
But we kept winning. We kept winning.
Everyone's been clamoring since Wednesday
to know as much as we can
about the injury.
What can you tell us now?
Well, I said "We'll see." So how'd it go?
By the time you get to Super Bowl,
you're, like, "This is the end."
No matter how hard it's been,
I don't care about what happened.
This is the last 100 yards of the race.
This is where I'm gonna sprint
and try to get it done.
From the moment the game started,
it was tough.
All the things
we had kind of prepared for,
they had chose to do
some different things.
And not that we weren't
being productive against it,
but we never really had 'em on the ropes
because we could never get a lead.
Foles fakes.
He steps up. He is going deep.
Caught by Alshon Jeffery for a touchdown!
That eerie
atmosphere just continued
going into the Super Bowl, too.
Low snap. Ball put down bad.
The kick is up. Hits the upright!
No good.
First half, personally for myself,
I was definitely slow.
Broken up at the goal line.
I wasn't feeling it all the way.
Across the 20, the 15,
the ten, the five.
The train is in the end zone!
We were playing catch-up all frickin' day.
Slips a hit at the 15.
Driving off a tackle at the ten.
Touchdown, Patriots!
Gonna be a dogfight, boys.
- We'll be watching.
- We knew it was.
We knew it was.
We call this play.
It was called "Clemson,"
'cause we got it from Clemson.
We used it in the 2015 season
against the Eagles.
They really don't account
for the quarterback,
you know, going out for a pass.
I caught it, and I ran for like 35 yards.
So I always like having that play in,
and Josh was always, like, "Dude,
I'm calling this play close enough
so you can get it in the end zone."
We're on about the 35, third down.
You know, I had the stitches
that I had removed from my right hand.
I had a glove
that was tucked into my pants.
Josh called in the play,
"Clemson, Clemson."
I reached down for the glove,
and I felt the glove in there.
I was gonna pull it out and put it on.
But looked up at the clock,
and I was, like,
"I'm too rushed, I'm too rushed.
I'm not gonna do it."
Brady before he summons White
into the backfield,
We give the ball to the back.
He gives it to Danny.
I'm running out to catch it,
and, man, I'm in space.
Danny literally throws a perfect ball.
I look up for the ball
and I see it and I reach out.
And just as I reach out to catch it,
I don't come down with it, you know?
Brady, off his hands, incomplete!
Come on, Tom!
At all the moments
for me to make a play
to help us win,
That was the one that
in that game I really look back on.
I mean, unbelievable.
Like, however many plays later than that,
they run Philly Special.
Here we go. Here we go.
Set hut!
Easy, easy.
Kill, kill. Blade, blade.
Moves to the right.
It goes directly to Clement, reverses it,
and the pass goes into the end zone,
and it is a touchdown!
To Nick Foles.
And it just happened so quick, you know,
and they executed to perfection.
Like, you can't be
too rigid in your thoughts,
and emotionally, it's the same, right?
You can't be, you know,
too caught up in an emotion
to where it begins to impact your ability
to stay centered or in a relaxed state
to be able to perform your best.
I think you find that,
and you see that in Tom.
Like, he's very good at it.
He never gets too high or too low.
When he does, when he feels himself,
he knows how to bring himself
back to center.
In the second half, that rhythm picked up,
and then all of a sudden
we just started clicking.
You could tell coming out of the gate
they want to get the ball to 87.
We're just making
big plays left and right.
He throws to the middle of the end zone.
Touchdown, Gronkowski!
We were just putting up points.
But the Eagles, they were
putting up points, too.
The game was just going
back and forth, back and forth.
Some of the best execution
we've ever had on offense.
Gronk made one of the all-time
great catches in the Super Bowl.
And the Patriots have gone in front.
I was, like, we finally
got a lead, you know.
Unbelievable. We did it.
We finally got control of the game.
I was, like, all right, man.
This is cool, right? Another Super Bowl.
I caught the game-winning touchdown.
Like, this is incredible.
Way to go, boys.
And, um
they got the ball back.
Empty backfield.
Four receivers right.
Back goes Foles.
Fires, slant, touchdown!
Zach Ertz.
2:21 remaining in regulation.
Much, much too much time
for Tom Brady and that offense.
Now we got a chance
to go down and win with a touchdown drive.
I'll take that ten out of ten times.
Football has been that meditative place
for me in my life.
Been a place where I knew
that I could control what the outcome was.
You know, I'm the one
with the ball in my hands.
That's a very comforting place for me.
We got the ball. We got the ball.
We got the ball.
And the kick is good.
Now it's pure desperation.
We were just getting
as close as we possibly could
to the end zone
so it was a reasonable Hail Mary.
It was one of the most epic Super Bowls
that I've been a part of.
One of the most epic Super Bowls
that's ever been played.
Probably one of the things I remember most
from that Super Bowl,
you know, the way it ended.
That's two Super Bowls I've lost that way
with the ball just kind of
falling to the ground and
With our guys near,
but in the end, not there.
I literally gave it all I had, you know.
Even though I was beat down,
we almost had a chance.
The bounce almost went our way, but
wasn't meant to be.
There was so much
great energy going into that.
I knew how much we'd overcome.
Based on the way
that that season had gone
Well, it's all, you know, nonsense.
You know, winning would have been
like a warm blanket.
So losing, I was just pissed.
Numb, you know, I think is the word.
Get to the locker room
and there's a lot of hugs with
a lot of guys you bled with.
A lot of guys you shed tears with.
A lot of guys that are your brothers,
you know, that you're never gonna have
the same team the same way again,
and, um, it ends pretty quickly.
Just walking into the shower,
talking with a couple players.
Like, yo, man, great season,
but, like, I'm glad it's over, man.
Like, it needed to be over.
It was long, it was eerie
through the whole year.
The energy, the atmosphere
was just always off.
It felt good to walk off the field
and know that I didn't
have a game the next week.
I just remember leaving that stadium
and in my mind going,
"Wow, that was that was really tough."
Tough season, tough game.
We gotta put that one to bed.
Football is tough.
I mean, you gotta really have joy
in order to play the game of football,
'cause it's so physical
and it's so, like, mentally draining, too.
You gotta be enjoying that, no doubt.
And, you know, when you're not,
it just becomes like a job.
So once the joy is gone,
I mean, you gotta walk away from the game.
I learned a lot about people that year,
learned a lot about relationships
and who was in your corner and who wasn't.
Based on how things were going,
I maybe in a way held out hope
that I would begin to have
a different type of feeling
toward going to work every day.
That maybe, you know,
I could find more joy.
But I did know that if things
were gonna continue
the way they were heading,
that I couldn't do it anymore.