The eighth and final installment of the "Why Sports Matter" podcast series dropped Tuesday on Religion of Sports, the website co-founded by Tom Brady, Michael Strahan and Gotham Chopra. And once again, No. 12 has proclaimed his desire to last another five years in the NFL.
The episode, centered around hardcore professional wrestler Jeff "Cannonball" Guerriero, explores the feelings of authenticity in sports, and the role of sports as an arena where people are allowed to organically express themselves. In it, Brady, 41, explains his reasoning behind his often-expressed desire to play into his mid-40's, knowing that once he stops he can't pick it up again.
"Once you stop, you’re done. I feel like there’s still things to accomplish," he says. "I have an opportunity, based on all the things that have happened in the last 12 years of my life, to put myself in a position to achieve things that no one has achieved. So, I feel like I have to do it.
"I would love to play 5 more years, 'til I’m 41, 42, 43, 44, 45. It’ll be a challenge for me, I don’t think it’s going to be easy. I don’t think 35, 36, 37, 38 was easy, either. It’s [expletive] gotta be hard to do. But, I think I can do it."
Expanding on the topic of authenticity, Brady has some interesting comments about how guarded he has to be off the field, and why the gridiron lends itself to him letting out one of those famous roars of his.
"When I’m out on the field in front of 70,000 people, I can kinda do what I want," he says. "I can really be who I am. I get to be me with my raw emotion and energy. If I want to scream at somebody, I can scream at somebody. But you don’t really see me doing that any place else.
"I can be myself in a lot of ways I can’t be myself if I don’t feel protected. When I’m around people I don’t know, and I know that a conversation is going to go outside of the people I’m having a conversation with, I don’t say much. I think my way of protecting myself from that is to isolate myself, because I’m protective of who I am, and I don’t trust a lot of people, so that’s probably why I love football so much, because it allows me to be who I am, in a very authentic way that is hard for me to be when I walk off the field."
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The episode, which was recorded before the 2018 season, also features an appearance from Strahan, as well as Deepak Chopra.
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