In the fifth episode of “Tom vs. Time”, we get a unique look inside the relationship and marriage between Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen and visual evidence of some tension between the two over just how long the quarterback should keep playing.
While on a getaway to Costa Rica eight weeks before the 2017 season opener, Brady and Gisele sit down to discuss what the game plan is for Brady’s future based on what the two discussed when they first met in 2006 and how that’s changed over the years.
“He did tell me he was going to play only for 10 years,” Gisele said. “When I met him in 2006, he told me, ‘Listen, I’m just going to play for 10 years, I’m going to win one Super Bowl and I’m going to be happy.'”
Recorded last summer before Brady’s run to an eighth Super Bowl in Minnesota, Gisele related a conversation she says the two had after Brady led the Patriots to the greatest comeback in NFL playoff history in Super Bowl LI in Houston.
“I told him last year (after Super Bowl LI), ‘This is great. What a great win. Now you’ve won two Super Bowls, end of the tenth year, now we’re go and (live in Costa Rica). And I was like, ‘Let’s go. I’m ready.’ But then he’s like, ‘No.’
“Still got a few more to go,” Brady chimed in.
“Yeah, he said that,” Gisele said with clear resignation, before adding, “Football, as far as I’m concerned, is like his first love. It really is, and I think it’s his main love, really, quite frankly. It’s true.”
Brady attempts to add some context.
“When I’m done playing I really want to be able to support her and what her dreams are, to be more flexible with schedule and time and commitment,” Brady said. “A lot of that time will be freed up that’s been so committed to pursuing this career that will only last a short while longer. That’s not another 10 years.”
“Like how many more years?” Bundchen asks her husband directly on camera.
Brady knocks over a piece of furniture and laughs, “Oh, we ran out of battery.”
“Football was my first love,” Brady continues. “I fell in love with the sport with the game when I was four years old when I was watching Joe Montana. I was able to build this relationship with the game, and I’ve worked … 27 years of this sport. It’s effortless because it’s so synonymous with my being.”
The fifth Facebook episode is entitled “The Spiritual Game” and details the place spirituality holds in Brady’s perspective on life.
“Spirituality means a lot of different things to different people and I think to me, it’s your deepest purpose,” Brady said. “I do want to know the whys of life, I want to know why we’re here, where we’re going, trying to find that deeper purpose. To live it through sports in a very authentic way makes so much sense to me. Having these dreams and goals and aspirations and waking up and putting in the work and miracles happening and all this magic that sports creates, I’m in the middle of it. I get to live that through sports.”
The episode begins in Costa Rica, as Brady goes on a surfing retreat with his wife, Gisele and their family. Gisele is down on the island working.
“In a lot of ways, surfing is like a metaphor for life. As a beginner, you just want to get in there and go out and paddle. You do that and what do you do? You find yourself in a lot of whitewash. You’re wasting all your energy when there’s nothing to accomplish.”
