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    Antonio Brown Settles Suit With Sexual Assault Accuser

    A statement released by lawyers for Brown and his accuser said, “Having reflected on their relationship, both feel that the time has come to move on.”Antonio Brown, one of the N.F.L.’s most prominent wide receivers, said through a representative on Wednesday that he had settled a lawsuit brought by his former trainer who had accused him of rape and sexual assault. The statement from Brown’s representative was also released by the accuser’s legal team.The resolution appeared to have ended the bitter and often public dispute between Brown and Britney Taylor, who filed a civil claim in September 2019 that accused the N.F.L. star of sexually assaulting her twice in June 2017 and raping her in May 2018. Taylor publicly identified herself as Brown’s accuser in a statement issued when the lawsuit was filed.She said that she had met Brown when they were students at Central Michigan and that they had stayed in contact after Brown reached the N.F.L., as a sixth-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2010. Brown had hired Taylor as a personal trainer and, according to the statement on Wednesday, they were business partners for a time.Brown has repeatedly denied the allegations, which the statement did not address.The settlement announced on Wednesday brought an abrupt end to a dispute that led to dueling lawsuits and caustic comments between Brown and Taylor.“Having reflected on their relationship, both feel that the time has come to move on,” Alana Burstyn, Brown’s spokeswoman, said in a statement. “Antonio is grateful for Britney’s excellent training assistance. They are pleased that Antonio is doing so well with the Bucs and has a ring. Their dispute is resolved and they wish each other great continued success.”Asked what prompted the settlement, Burstyn said that Brown and Taylor “got tired of fighting.”Burstyn and Taylor’s lawyer, David Haas, did not provide financial details of the settlement.The N.F.L.’s investigation into the case is continuing, a spokesman said.Brown, 32, was also accused of sexual misconduct by another woman in a Sports Illustrated report published a week after Taylor’s case became public. Brown also denied that accusation.The accusations surfaced soon after Brown joined the New England Patriots. The team released him on Sept. 20, 2019, after he sent threatening texts to his accuser in the second case. He sat out the remainder of the 2019 season, and during that hiatus was charged with burglary and battery in a January 2020 dispute with a moving company employee. Brown pleaded no contest in that case and received two years’ probation.When Taylor filed her case against Brown, he countersued, claiming she had defamed him and interfered with his N.F.L. contracts and endorsements.As his legal troubles piled up and he made increasingly strident pronouncements on social media, Brown went from a highly coveted receiver to an outcast on the verge of being bounced from the N.F.L. His future on the football field was clouded further when the league, as it continued to investigate Taylor’s claims, suspended him for the first half of the 2020 season because of the threatening texts and his role in the dispute with the moving company employee.The Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed Brown last October, with Taylor’s lawsuit and the N.F.L.’s investigation still pending. Before his first game for the Buccaneers, Brown said he was grateful for another chance to get back on the field and thanked the team’s quarterback, Tom Brady, who let Brown stay in his Tampa-area mansion. Brown said he hoped to prove himself to his new team and “win them over in my actions, how I move forward and how I handle my business.”Brown played in 11 games at the end of the 2020 N.F.L. season and during the playoffs, helping the Buccaneers win the Super Bowl in February.Even before Taylor’s suit was filed, Brown had earned a reputation in the N.F.L. as a fiery personality. He scuffled with teammates and was fined for touchdown celebrations during his nine seasons with the Steelers, and then had short stints with the Oakland Raiders and the Patriots in 2019.As a Raider, he fought with the team’s general manager, argued over which helmet he could use and sat out most of the 2019 training camp because of a severe case of frostbite on his feet that developed when he used a cryotherapy chamber. He criticized the Raiders and the Patriots after he was released and threatened to retire on Instagram, continuing to do so in elaborately produced videos even as he publicly disputed Taylor’s allegations. Brown’s tempestuousness ultimately prompted his longtime agent, Drew Rosenhaus, to walk away from a client who earned $77.5 million during his career.Brown earned $1.67 million on a one-year contract last season, as well as a playoff bonus. He has not re-signed with the Buccaneers and is an unrestricted free agent.Buccaneers General Manager Jason Licht said Wednesday that he has been negotiating to re-sign Brown for the 2021 season and that the status of the Taylor lawsuit had not affected the talks.“So, to have this resolved, it certainly helps,” Licht said. “But it wasn’t, you know, that isn’t necessarily the deciding factor of whether or not we’re going to continue to talk.” More

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    Patriots, 49ers Among N.F.L. Free Agency’s Biggest Spenders

    The 2021 N.F.L. salary cap has crunched some teams looking to shore up their rosters. Others have opened up their wallets.In an off-season characterized by a $182.5 million salary cap, down 8 percent from 2020, N.F.L. general managers are maneuvering the landscape carefully. With the official start of free agency underway, executives are looking at players to add — or keep — on their rosters, but only at the right price.Of course, some teams are already spending more aggressively than others, mostly on big contracts for proven defensive talent and one-year deals for a handful of high-profile names. In the coming days, teams with leftover cap room are expected to fill in the gaps with a loaded pool of free agent receivers who have taken a back seat with the crunched cap limit.So far, these are the teams that have set the market in free agency, investing millions of dollars in free agency for a better chance of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy next February (or throwing it to a teammate on another boat during the celebratory parade).New England PatriotsAfter missing the playoffs and finishing 7-9 in 2020, general manager/coach Bill Belichick strengthened his team by spending more than $268 million in contracts, the biggest free agent spree in the league so far, according to Spotrac. New England doled a sizable portion of that sum to the offense, which struggled in its first season without quarterback Tom Brady, who won his seventh Super Bowl after leaving for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a year ago in free agency.Belichick went all in on tight ends, signing Jonnu Smith to a four-year, $50 million contract and Hunter Henry to a three-year, $37.5 million deal. By prying Smith away from the Tennessee Titans and Henry away from the Los Angeles Chargers, the Patriots are poised to use two-tight end formations, as they did from 2010-12 with Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. The offense ranked in the top three in scoring each of those seasons. Smith caught 41 passes for 448 yard and eight touchdowns last season and Henry was the Chargers’ second-leading receiver with 60 catches for 613 yards and four touchdowns.While the Patriots re-signed quarterback Cam Newton to another one-year deal, it is still possible that New England adds another quarterback this off-season. Whoever’s under center should have at least two dependable targets.San Francisco 49ersOffensive tackle Trent Williams was selected to the Pro Bowl after the 2020 season, his first with the San Francisco 49ers.Rick Scuteri/Associated PressDecimated by injuries last season, the 49ers inked two major additions to its offensive front in an effort to quickly rebound as an N.F.C. contender.The team locked in eight-time Pro Bowl selection Trent Williams to a six-year, $138 million contract, making him the highest-paid offensive lineman in N.F.L. history. Williams had been traded to San Francisco last year after he held out the 2019 season over a claim that Washington Football Team doctors mishandled treating a cancerous tumor on his head. He joins center Alex Mack, a six-time Pro Bowler who the 49ers signed to a three-year, $14.85 million deal.A good chunk of the $164.9 million the 49ers spent in free agency went to adding two of the best blockers in football to protect quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo against the N.F.C. West’s aggressive pass rushers, Rams Aaron Donald and Arizona Cardinals’ J.J. Watt. An upright quarterback tends to have a positive effect on a team’s offense.Jacksonville JaguarsBy trading expensive players such as Jalen Ramey and Yannick Ngakoue in recent seasons, the Jacksonville Jaguars entered free agency with a bevy of available cap space. They have offered $144 million in total value for contracts. They focused primarily on defense, after finishing 1-15 with the league’s second-worst defense, signing cornerback Shaquill Griffin to a three-year, $40-millon contract, safety Rayshawn Jenkins to a four-year, $35-million deal and defensive end Roy Robertson-Harris to three years and $23.4 million.Offensively, the Jaguars’ rebuild starts with the draft, where the team will mostly likely use the No. 1 overall pick to select Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence. First-time N.F.L. head coach Urban Meyer, who team owner Shahid Khan said will have roster control, is using free agency to plug holes before the new face of the franchise arrives. But Meyer has already voiced his displeasure with some aspects of running an N.F.L. team, calling the league’s legal tampering period “awful.”Cincinnati BengalsA strong free agency market for defensive talent led the woeful Bengals (4-11 in the 2020 season) to prioritize that side of the ball with $122.75 million in free agent contracts. The team also signed Vikings tackle Riley Reiff to a one year, $7.5-million deal, the first step in fixing a weak offensive line charged with protecting Joe Burrow, who tied for ninth-most sacked quarterback in the league last season.Tennessee TitansDerrick Henry’s legs can only carry the Titans so far. Despite a season where the running back again led the league in rushing yards, Tennessee was bounced from the playoffs in the wild-card round. This off-season, general manager Jon Robinson bolstered the pass rush by adding former Steelers outside linebacker Bud Dupree on a five-year, $82.5-million contract. Dupree had eight sacks for the Steelers in the 2020 season. The Titans are paying him to help contain opposing quarterbacks with the potential to burn them on the ground as the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson did in key moments of that playoff loss to Baltimore.JetsFirst-year head coach Robert Saleh’s defensive background showed in free agency when the Jets signed defensive end Carl Lawson to a three-year, $45-million deal. It’s the largest the Jets finalized in free agency thus far, contributing to the $110.25 million in total contracts.Pairing Lawson, whose speed helped him to 5.5 sacks last season with the Bengals, on the edge should complement the power of third-year defensive lineman Quinnen Williams. The Jets hold the No. 2 overall pick in the draft, and are a rumored landing spot for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson. Their roster could still see major additions.Tampa Bay BuccaneersShaquil Barrett, right, is a critical part of the Buccaneers’ pass rush and was a key contributor to Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl run. Ashley Landis/Associated PressThe 2020 Super Bowl champions faced serious questions on if they could keep the core group of key contributors — linebacker Shaquil Barrett, receiver Chris Godwin, and tight end Rob Gronkowski and others needed new contracts — with little available cap space entering free agency.With some slick accounting, Tampa Bay looks like it will keep most of the band together.General manager Jason Licht cleared cap space by placing the franchise tag on Godwin and Tom Brady contributed too, by reworking his contract and signing a four-year extension to lessen the team’s cap hit.The Buccaneers have spent $93 million so far in free agency, highlighted by a four-year, $68-million contact for Barrett, who shined at the end of the playoffs as part of the team’s phenomenal pass rush. Barrett sacked Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers three times in the N.F.C. championship game and hounded Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl.Still finessing the available cap space, the Buccaneers also retained tight end Rob Gronkowski on a one-year deal reportedly worth up to $10 million and can now turn their attention to receiver Antonio Brown, running back Leonard Fournette and defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh in the hope of making another championship run.Los Angeles ChargersRookie quarterback Justin Herbert came into the league without a traditional training camp, was thrust into the starting spot after a freak injury to the starter, and still completed a record-breaking rookie year.He did all that with a rotating cast of offensive lineman, who the Chargers have looked to upgrade in free agency by signing former Packers All-Pro center Corey Linsley to a five-year, $62.5-million deal and adding Pittsburgh Steelers tackle Matt Feiler on a three-year, $21-million deal.Under new head coach Brandon Staley, the Chargers have spent $89.5 million so far in free agency to make Herbert’s second N.F.L. season a bit more stable.Washington Football TeamThe most impactful of Washington’s signings was inking journeyman quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to a one-year, $10-million contract to challenge Taylor Heinicke (who got a two-year, $4.75-million deal) at the position. It will be Fitzpatrick’s ninth team in his 17-year career.Fitzpatrick, who initially started last season for the Miami Dolphins last season before coach Brian Flores inserted rookie Tua Tagovailoa, should allow Washington to compete for a playoff berth in the wide-open N.F.C. East. He also buys the team time to find a long-term quarterback solution if Heinicke isn’t it.Kansas City ChiefsMahomes absorbed three sacks and nine hits in the Super Bowl, largely because starting tackles Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz were out with injuries.The team released both long-tenured tackles and added Patriots lineman Joe Thuney on a five-year, $80-million contract. Kansas City re-signed tackle Mike Remmers to a one-year deal reportedly worth up to $7 million. More

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    Tom Brady's Super Bowl Win Is a Familiar End to an Odd Season

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021N.F.L.’s Most Challenging YearGame HighlightsThe CommercialsHalftime ShowWhat We LearnedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBuccaneers 31, Chiefs 9Tom Brady’s 7th Super Bowl Win Ends N.F.L.’s Most Challenging YearThe N.F.L. season persisted through challenges wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, political discord and a national reckoning on race to reach a familiar ending.Tom Brady celebrated with his children after winning the Super Bowl on Sunday in Tampa, Fla. “I think we knew this was going to happen now, didn’t we?” Brady said.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesPublished More

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    Buccaneers Beat the Chiefs and Tom Brady Is a Champion Again

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021N.F.L.’s Most Challenging YearGame HighlightsThe CommercialsHalftime ShowWhat We LearnedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyHow Tom Brady and Tampa Bay Buccaneers Beat the Chiefs to Win the Super BowlBuccaneers Beat the Chiefs and Tom Brady Is a Champion AgainFeb. 7, 2021, 10:12 p.m. ETFeb. 7, 2021, 10:12 p.m. ETA nearly flawless Tom Brady claimed his record seventh Super Bowl title on Sunday, winning a duel with his young rival Patrick Mahomes and burnishing his legacy as the greatest quarterback in N.F.L. history by leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a 31-9 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.Brady’s Super Bowl title — coming at age 43 and in his first season with the Buccaneers — joins the six he won as a member of the New England Patriots (2002, 2003, 2005, 2015, 2017, 2018). He now has one more win than both the Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the two most decorated franchises in N.F.L. history.Congratulations to the greatest of all time.— New England Patriots (@Patriots) February 8, 2021
    He finished 21 of 29 for 209 yards and three touchdowns, including two to his former Patriots teammate Rob Gronkowski, who joined him in Tampa this season. His three touchdown passes gave him 21 in his Super Bowl career, one more than the combined total of the two quarterbacks behind him, Joe Montana (11) and Terry Bradshaw (9).Tampa Bay, the first team to play a Super Bowl on its home field, became the first one to win on there, too. It is the Buccaneers’ second championship; the team won its first in 2002.“I think we knew this was going to happen, didn’t we?” he asked his teammates from the stage after being handed the Vince Lombardi Trophy.Mahomes, 25, a former league most valuable player and a Super Bowl champion last season, finished 26 of 49 for 270 yards, but he was intercepted twice and harried throughout the second half.Brady, in 10 previous trips to the N.F.L.’s championship game, had never enjoyed an easy win in one until Sunday. All but one of his six previous wins saw both teams within one score of each other at the end.The closest Brady ever came to a Super Bowl “blowout” was a 13-3 win by the Patriots over the Los Angeles Rams two years ago. And the last 3 points of that game came in the final minute and 16 seconds.The second-largest margin of victory in a Brady win was a 6-point victory in overtime of Super Bowl LI in February 2017, when James White scored a touchdown on a toss play to give New England the championship.With his three children standing by his side, Brady declined to compare this year’s Buccaneers to his Patriots teams but said the team came together at the right time and indicated they were loaded with confidence heading into the game.“Every year is amazing,” he said, “and this team is world champions forever, you can’t take it away from us.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Why Some Women Don’t Want Antonio Brown in the Super Bowl

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Why the Chiefs Will WinTom Brady vs. Patrick MahomesA Super Bowl Trip Is Worth the Risk to Some Fans17 Recipes for Tiny TailgatesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySports of the TimesWhy Some Women Don’t Want Antonio Brown in the Super BowlThe Buccaneers receiver has been one of the most electrifying players in the N.F.L., but he is facing accusations of sexual assault and harassment.Antonio Brown of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has been one of the best receivers in the N.F.L., but has faced serious accusations of abuse against women.Credit…Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesFeb. 6, 2021, 9:00 a.m. ETGet over it.That was the message Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Antonio Brown tried to convey this past week.The past doesn’t matter, he seemed to say. With the Super Bowl upon us, the only concern should be about his ability to catch passes on Sunday.Brown’s preferred talking points were his love for quarterback Tom Brady, his team’s drive to beat the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs, and his comeback.That comeback did not involve an injury that eroded his electrifying talent on the field. Those skills have remained sufficiently intact for Brown, 32, to find a plush spot in the N.F.L., in spite of the history he did not want to discuss at a requisite pre-Super Bowl news conference.“I’d be doing a disservice if I talked about things that are not a focus of this game,” he said.Those things include withering verbal abuse aimed at the mother of three of his children and recorded on video. And an accusation of sexual harassment that was described in detail in a national magazine. And a looming lawsuit accusing him of rape, a claim that Brown has vociferously denied.Now, he is one win from a championship ring after off-the-field trouble sent his career into one of the most stunning tumbles experienced by a star athlete in recent memory.Tampa Bay gambled on him in a way that no other team dared, signing Brown to a one-year contract in October after he had been out of the game for a season and a half. The Buccaneers did not heed commentators who, looking at the pattern of trouble around Brown, said he needed time away from the league — possibly for good, but at least until his lawsuit was resolved.The team also chose to look past the #MeToo movement and its fundamental lesson: Women with stories of pain, and of powerlessness in their dealings with famous men, should be heard and taken seriously.Let’s remember that one in four women are subjected to abuse by intimate partners during their lifetimes, according to a government report. Let’s think of what they endure every time they see athletes like Brown, with unresolved accusations around them, take the field.Let’s listen to Brenda Tracy, who describes herself as the survivor of a 1998 gang rape by a group of men that included two Oregon State football players. The players weren’t criminally charged, but they were suspended by the coach for making “a bad choice.” Tracy became an advocate for abused women, working toward change by sharing her story with anyone who will listen. Colleges across the country have hired her to speak to their athletic teams.“I won’t be watching the Super Bowl this year,” she told me. “With Antonio Brown out there, it’s just too much.”Ahead of the big game, Brown characterized himself as a changed man — humbled, grateful, and in control. He spoke in quiet, careful tones. He gave the sense that he sees the accusations as a chance to prove that he can conquer adversity, mostly by catching Brady’s passes.“I want my legacy to be a guy that was persistent, a guy that never gave up, no matter the odds, no matter the hate,” Brown said.Tom Brady said recently that he and Brown had “connected right away” as Patriots teammates. Credit…Brynn Anderson/Associated PressWhat he really wanted was to move on.Let’s not. Let’s look at the claims, made by a personal trainer named Britney Taylor, in the lawsuit.In court filings, Taylor said that Brown assaulted her twice in 2017. She also asserted that Brown raped her in 2018.Through his legal team, the wide receiver has denied the accusations. He has countersued, accusing Taylor of defamation. Brown and Taylor were involved in a “consensual personal relationship,” his lawyer said in a statement.It is important to remember that the court proceedings can still be avoided if the two parties reach a settlement. It is not a criminal trial, in which Brown would face the possibility of prison.But Britney Taylor isn’t alone.In a Sports Illustrated article, an artist made detailed accusations of sexual harassment by Brown. The wide receiver also once targeted the mother of three of his children with a profane tirade and then posted a video of the incident on social media.On Twitter in 2018, he threatened a reporter from ESPN’s The Undefeated who wrote an article about Brown’s thorny personal life and turbocharged social media use. Brown ended up apologizing through a statement: “It is not OK to threaten anyone, and I need to be better spiritually and professionally.”That year he also settled a lawsuit that accused him of throwing heavy furniture from his 14th-floor apartment and nearly hitting a toddler.Brown’s exasperating behavior as a teammate prompted the Pittsburgh Steelers to trade him to the Oakland Raiders in 2019. Just before the start of the season, the Raiders dumped him for similar reasons.He landed briefly in New England, early in Brady’s final season with the Patriots. The lawsuit accusing Brown of rape soon became public, followed by the artist’s accusations of harassment. His third employer of that year cut him loose.Brady, who said recently that he and Brown had “connected right away” in New England, endorsed Tampa Bay’s decision to bring the receiver aboard midway through this season. When Brown arrived in town, he initially lived in Brady’s home.Yet Brown and the Buccaneers seem like an odd pairing. The team has two full-time female coaches, and there were only eight in the entire league this season. The Women’s Sports Foundation has honored Coach Bruce Arians for supporting women in the N.F.L.But Arians proved that talent matters more than principle.Sadly, that’s too often the bottom line for male stars in major sports. If you are accused of abusing or harassing women and are easy to replace, your job is probably gone. It doesn’t take a conviction, trial or arrest. (See Jared Porter, the former New York Mets general manager who was fired after accusations that he had repeatedly sent inappropriate texts to a female reporter.)If you are a star, well, your entitlement is virtually unlimited.Brown signed with the Buccaneers just after completing an eight-game suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. The reason for that penalty? He had pleaded no contest to burglary and assault charges after a dispute with a truck driver.He had every opportunity to express remorse for that incident this past week. He did not. So again, let’s listen instead to women, to people who won’t be in front of a huge global audience this weekend.Mindy Murphy runs The Spring of Tampa Bay, the largest shelter serving domestic violence survivors in Hillsborough County, home to the Buccaneers.When the N.F.L. tried to change its culture a few years ago, after Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was caught striking his fiancée, Murphy helped conduct training with the Buccaneers on abuse.Now she feels disillusioned.Seeing Brown chase a Super Bowl ring is a “disservice to what survivors have experienced,” she said. “When a team in the N.F.L. says, ‘We are going to hire him, and he deserves a second chance,’ or they say, ‘We don’t know for sure what’s happened, because it happened behind closed doors,’ they reinforce the idea that it’s not a good idea to speak up.”Remember that while watching the Buccaneers in the Super Bowl, and also remember Brown’s past.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Madonna? Harry Potter? Churchill? Tom Brady May Be Beyond Compare

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021Conference ChampionshipsBrady is BackIs Tampa the New Titletown?The N.F.L. and Black CoachesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMadonna? Harry Potter? Churchill? Tom Brady May Be Beyond CompareTom Brady rose from obscurity to become a standard-bearing quarterback hero, jousting with many characters along the way. We asked experts in various fields if they could cite similar sagas through history.Scholars compared Tom Brady to a variety of figures, real and fictional: (clockwise from top left) Winston Churchill, Harry Potter, Pope Benedict and Bill Clinton.Credit…Stanley ChowFeb. 3, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETThe arc of Tom Brady’s career — his rise to Super Bowl mainstay as quarterback of the New England Patriots and now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — reads as if it were a folk tale.An unwanted N.F.L. orphan out of college is consigned to a woebegone, frosty football hamlet. Something akin to a miracle — a near-death experience by a co-worker — vaults him from obscurity into his dominion’s brightest spotlight, where he slays a two-touchdown favorite to win the Super Bowl. Next, this one-time nobody wins two more Super Bowls.He has it all: fame, fortune, a goddess for a wife. But he is also controlled by a Svengali-like mentor (the Hoodie), who draws him into a secretive clan known for outlaw tactics. As its ringleader, Brady is demonized outside his kingdom, the fiefdom of Dunkin’, and is briefly banished by the princely overlord, Roger the Goodell of Park Avenue.Brady plots his revenge, leading a patriot army to three more championships, achieving deity-like status signified by mythic comparisons of him to a mountaintop goat. Alas, in time even Brady’s powers diminish and he appears ready to be dethroned. Then, in yet another twist, Brady spurns his crafty swami to launch a new crusade in a foreign land where Ponce de León once sought the fountain of youth. Imbuing a bunch of football wannabe-greats with Brady wizardry, he claims another kingdom, from which he plots utter sovereignty.Quite a story, right?Folk tales gain their popularity for being universally applicable. So we wondered, are there other fields in which a Tom Brady-like figure exists? Whose storied life has been comparable? In the worlds of literature, politics and business, who is their Tom Brady? In the Bible? Theater? Greek mythology? TV or music? Does Tom Brady have any analog?In a chat room created to discuss which fictional character might be an apt comparison to Brady, the first response typed was “Harry Potter.”Credit…Stanley ChowLike everything else related to Brady, opinions clashed. Imagine Alexander the Great in a sword fight with Madonna.For example, in a chat room created to discuss which fictional character, or historical figure, might be an apt comparison to Brady, the first response typed was “Harry Potter.”The second reply: “Voldemort,” the literary saga’s villain.OK.On second thought, a roll call of experts from myriad fields was consulted — with entertaining results.The filmmaker and author Gotham Chopra, who made Brady the subject of a 2018 documentary film and of a nine-part documentary series set to air later this year, suggested that Brady was two conflicting biblical figures, David and Goliath.“He’s the ultimate underdog who came out of nowhere,” Chopra said. “But with all the success, over time he turned into Goliath, which is sort of interesting.”Hunter R. Rawlings III, a classics scholar and the former president of the University of Iowa and Cornell University, said there was no perfect fit in history for every part of Brady’s life narrative, even in mythology, but he found a link to Alexander the Great.“He never lost a battle, though fighting against Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, Afghans, Indians, and countless others,” Rawlings wrote in an email.Rawlings also noted, for those who believe that Bill Belichick is pivotal to the Brady story, that Alexander’s childhood tutor was none other than Aristotle. Alexander was also occasionally despised.“Alex and Brady, it strikes me that there is never enough winning for such people,” Rawlings said, adding: “Those two are definitely G.O.A.T.’s, but somehow seem to spawn as many detractors as admirers.”David Maraniss, author of best-selling biographies of presidents and prominent athletic personalities, said he found elements of Brady in Winston Churchill.Credit…Stanley ChowDavid Bianculli, a television critic and professor of film and TV at Rowan University, cited the 1978 movie “Heaven Can Wait,” a fantasy-comedy that starred Warren Beatty as a resolute N.F.L. quarterback who overcomes numerous obstacles. Beatty’s character dies and comes back to life twice, which is undoubtedly the ultimate fourth-quarter rally.The resourceful, adaptable community of world leaders seemed a ripe sub-society to mine on the subject of Brady analogies. David Maraniss, author of best-selling biographies of presidents and prominent athletic personalities, said he found elements of Bill Clinton and Winston Churchill in Brady.“I mean in terms of latching onto a Machiavellian sort of master of the dark arts to help you,” Maraniss said, pointing out that Clinton had used the adviser Dick Morris “as his political manipulator to get where he wanted to go.”“There’s a little bit of Churchill there, too,” Maraniss added, “for coming back at an old age and being at his best again.”The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author who frequently writes and comments on religious and spiritual topics, said the parts of Brady’s narrative with the most striking historical similarities were his career comebacks or revivals.“I do not, however, think he’s exactly Lazarus,” Martin said.Martin believes the most obvious comparison in the Bible is King David, who Martin noted led a “very complicated life and was clearly seen as someone who had fallen but still was a revered leader of the people.” King David conspired to kill Bathsheba’s husband, the soldier Uriah, by having him placed up front in battle and then abandoned to the enemy.“He basically has him assassinated, and people are obviously upset with that,” Martin said. “He is a person who’s not perfect but nonetheless beloved in his area. And his people knew his flaws better than anyone.”Martin, whose book “Learning to Pray” was published this week, also suggested Pope Francis as a possible parallel to Brady, because he did not ascend to the papacy until he was 76.“Pope Francis is not married to a supermodel,” Martin said. “So that’s where the comparison slips a bit.”The Rev. James Martin said Pope Francis, who ascended to the papacy at 76, was a possible parallel to Brady.Credit…Stanley ChowAfter warming up with David and Goliath comparisons, Chopra mentioned Muhammad Ali and LeBron James as cultural figures similar to Brady, and Madonna because she had persevered.“Madonna the artist today versus the Madonna when she was 19,” Chopra said. “Radically different and yet equally accomplished.”Chopra, who has remained friendly with Brady, also told a funny story of a recent walk with Brady on the Great Wall of China. Two women passed by, and one excitedly recognized the quarterback. The other woman did not understand why he was famous until her friend said: “He’s Gisele’s husband.”“So, he’s super grounded,” Chopra said, laughing.Literary fiction seemed to be an especially fertile place to find characters who resemble Brady.Heather Klemann, a lecturer at Yale University whose specialty is 18th century British novels, pointed out Sir Charles Grandison, a central figure in a famed mid-18th century novel that bore his name. Grandison faces trials and tribulations but does so without moral flaws or malicious intent.Perhaps proving that not much has changed in 270 years, Klemann recalled literary criticism of Grandison along these lines: “Annoyance that this guy is perfect, you know?”Finally, James Shapiro, a renowned Shakespeare scholar at Columbia University, said he could find no one like Brady among the thousand or so characters in Shakespeare’s plays, though there is a reference to a “base football player” in “King Lear.”Shapiro instead saw a distinct parallel in the centuries-old play “Doctor Faustus,” about a man who makes a deal with the devil, selling his soul in exchange for 24 years of having his heart’s wishes met. By Shapiro’s calculation, such a deal for Brady would date back to his days riding the bench at the University of Michigan.“Which kind of makes sense since that’s when things turned around for him, almost miraculously,” Shapiro wrote in an email. “It makes you wonder, no?”Such a deal could expire not too long after this weekend’s Super Bowl.“But,” Shapiro conceded, “that’s a Giants fan speaking.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Retirement in Florida? Tom Brady’s Next Move Might Be to the Super Bowl

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and Cases13,000 Approaches to TeachingVaccine InformationTimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRetirement in Florida? Tom Brady’s Next Move Might Be to the Super BowlThe inglorious interception at the end of his career in New England seems a distant memory as he leads the Buccaneers into the N.F.C. championship game on Sunday.Florida man, 43, vows to play in the N.F.L. until he is 45.Credit…Chris Graythen/Getty ImagesJan. 22, 2021Updated 4:59 p.m. ETOne year ago, Tom Brady’s last pass as a New England Patriot was intercepted and returned for a touchdown, the final mortifying act of a bitter first-round playoff loss.Brady, 42 at the time, had endured an erratic season, his 20th in the N.F.L., and with that performance slump came incessant conjecture about whether he would, or should, retire.Less than a minute into a news conference after the Patriots postseason exit, Brady, a six-time Super Bowl champion, was asked if he was going to quit football.Brady paused, with a faint look of exasperation.“I would say it’s pretty unlikely,” he finally said.Now, he is a game away from another Super Bowl appearance. He will lead his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, into the N.F.C. championship against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.For Brady, win or lose, his 14th appearance in a conference title game will serve as the most defiant answer to those who wondered if — or secretly hoped — he would walk away from pro football forever, leaving a substantial void in the game itself.The N.F.L. finds itself at an inflection point with aging stars at quarterback like Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees in their final years as emerging young stars like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson put their stamp on the position with multifaceted talents.But Brady is perhaps the most polarizing of the elders because of his longstanding ties to the Patriots, who have been heavily fined and punished with lost draft picks for various violations of league rules for nearly 15 years. Then there was Brady’s showcased role in the contretemps known as Deflategate, when the search for the cause of underinflated footballs in a 2015 playoff game resulted in a four-game suspension for Brady.For now, Brady is not going away. Often called the greatest quarterback in history, and a fixture of the N.F.L. playoffs this century in a Patriots uniform, he will appear on televisions screens Sunday in the pewter and red colors of the Buccaneers. Fans may have to adjust to that scene for a while, because Brady has for years indicated that he plans to play until he is 45. And who is going to stop him?“I’m definitely older,” Brady said this month after helping Tampa Bay win its first playoff game in 18 years. “But I’m hanging in there.”Brady, who won 30 postseason games with the Patriots, is also clearly relishing a period of vindication, since the second chapter of his career would seem to prove that past successes were not solely the result of his partnership with New England’s coach, Bill Belichick, or the influence of the noted “Patriot Way.”After the Buccaneers’ divisional round playoff victory over the New Orleans Saints last weekend, Tampa Bay Coach Bruce Arians was asked if he could tell that Brady was savoring a different kind of career milestone — a momentous playoff victory detached from the Patriots.“Yeah, you could tell,” Arians responded with a smile. “The emotions were really good — good moments on the field, in the locker room.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    Can’t Measure Heart? N.F.L. Teams Are Trying

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCan’t Measure Heart? N.F.L. Teams Are TryingChampionships can be won and lost when players’ competitive fire kicks in and they exhibit faster-than-normal speed to make a crucial catch or chase down a tackle.Cardinals safety Budda Baker’s interception looked to be a pick-six until Seahawks receiver D.K. Metcalf chased him down for a tackle in October.Credit…Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesJan. 14, 2021Updated 6:41 p.m. ETSometimes it is a primal skill that matters most in football.“If you’re chasing a guy, can you catch him?” said Bill Belichick, the six-time Super Bowl champion coach of the New England Patriots. “Or if a guy is chasing you, can you outrun him?”In the N.F.L., scouts, talent evaluators, coaches and general managers spend tens of thousands of hours every year in a quest to identify which players are best at these fundamental skills. Despite all the complexities and intricate strategy of a modern pro football season, some of the most imperative evaluations still border on the rudimentary.The consensus, however, is that it’s not simply a measure of how fast someone runs, even if the 40-yard dash metric is ubiquitous and venerated. Sophisticated technologies can now quantify a dozen variables of a sprinting stride and decoding the clues within that data is a budding cottage industry, but there may also be more of a schoolyard ethos to the assessment.“It’s a little bit more in the heart than the stopwatch,” Belichick said last year on the topic, which is one of his favorites. “There’s competitive speed, or game speed.”It is not a trivial consideration: Championships can be won and lost on such plays. In addition to the countless examples of a wide receiver pulling away from a defender to get open for a deep touchdown pass or a running back bursting untouched through a team’s last line of defense, there are conspicuous illustrations of how a more self-evident, elementary skill can be the turning point of a pivotal game.On Thanksgiving Day this season, Terry McLaurin, a wide receiver for the Washington Football Team, was roughly 10 yards behind Dallas linebacker Jaylon Smith when Smith intercepted a pass at the Washington 47-yard line and had a clear path to the end zone for a game-tying score late in the third quarter. McLaurin dashed after Smith, and despite having to evade potential Dallas blockers stationed in his way, tackled Smith at the 4-yard line.The Washington defense then made a goal-line stand that forced Dallas to settle for a field goal. Demoralized, Dallas did not score again as an invigorated Washington rallied for three touchdowns and an easy victory. At season’s end, Washington was in the playoffs as the N.F.C. East champions because it had one more victory than Dallas and the Giants.“It was a huge play, just what we needed,” Washington Coach Ron Rivera said of McLaurin’s effort afterward.The aptitude for superior in-game speed may seem obvious to the naked eye, but in fact trying to figure out which college draft picks or potential free agents possess it in a way that will regularly show up on the field can be tricky. Nonetheless, it is a foremost aim of every N.F.L. team.“It’s talked about all the time because it is a complex assessment,” said Scott Pioli, the former general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs who was also a top executive with the Atlanta Falcons, New England Patriots and Jets. “We can all see what a player’s pure speed is when he’s running in a straight line in shorts at the league’s combine. But football is not a straight line game, it’s a lot of stopping and starting, it’s change of direction, it’s instincts and angles.”Pioli said Patriots scouts were perpetually asked to not only report a player’s timed speed, but his “playing speed,” as well.“The scout’s report might have a player running 4.5 in the 40, but the scout adds that he’s played faster than that,” said Pioli, who is now an analyst for CBS Sports HQ. “Or slower when he has pads on because football isn’t played in shorts.”There are outliers, and they can get lost, or found, in hours of film study conducted by pro personnel directors. Coming out of college, former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was considered fast but was not necessarily projected to become the game-changing presence he turned out to be. Three linebackers and eight other defensive players were taken ahead of him in the 1996 draft. Wes Welker, a 5-foot-9 wide receiver who played for five N.F.L. teams and ranks 22nd in career receptions with 903, was not even invited to the N.F.L. scouting combine and went undrafted in 2004.“Lewis played much faster because of his intelligence, which helped him to read opponents’ tendencies,” Pioli said. “Undersized receivers like Welker, they also play faster because of their quickness. You have to look for all those attributes.”Teams are increasingly using tech help to recognize and verify those unique qualities. But it doesn’t always work as intended.With radio-frequency identification chips (RFID) placed in every N.F.L. player’s shoulder pads transmitting streams of data, pro personnel directors now have a trove of data at their disposal. The same information is also logged during practice sessions. Much of the same information is collected on players before the college draft. After Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman took wide receiver Jalen Reagor with the team’s first-round choice in 2020 he talked about Reagor’s RFID numbers and on-the-field speed.“You get the GPS numbers on these guys, so you can see how they’re running in games and their speed in games,” Roseman said of Reagor, who also ran a swift 4.47 second 40-yard dash. “He’s running at a really high level.”Looking to add speed to their offense, the Eagles drafted receiver Jalen Reagor, above, whose speed was tracked via radio frequency identification chips (RFID). Credit…Michael Conroy/Associated PressReagor was viewed as a disappointment this season for the Eagles, especially for such a high draft pick. He had 31 receptions this season for 396 yards and a touchdown, although he did miss five games to injury. Exacerbating the appraisal of Reagor was the 1,400 receiving yards (a rookie record) and 88 catches accumulated by Minnesota’s Justin Jefferson, who was selected 22nd overall in last spring’s draft, one spot after Reagor.Last week, Roseman conceded there were lengthy deliberations about draft-eligible receivers like Jefferson and Reagor. “Definitely a lot of opinions on this draft class and this receiver class for sure,” he said.While not specifically speaking about Philadelphia’s decision-making, Pioli said that leaguewide there were obstacles internally that impede teams from making the most fruitful judgments. Notably, a front office schism can stand in the way of a cooperative marriage between staffers who compile analytical data and coaches and other evaluators who are more likely to trust their eyes after in-person tryouts and hours of traditional film study.“This comes in when one of those two worlds, whether it’s the football people or the analytics people, don’t have enough respect for the other,” Pioli said. “Egos get in the way of arriving at the best answer.”Steve Gera, an ex-coach, scout and executive with the San Diego Chargers and Cleveland Browns, founded a company, BreakAway Data, with David Anderson, a former N.F.L. wide receiver, in part to help facilitate the divide between a team’s analytic resources and parts of the organization that came up through more customary football channels.Using wearable sensors, Gera and Anderson have developed isolated, football-specific tests for athletes that they have tried out on college campuses and in the X.F.L. “Then, we processed that data essentially into coach-speak,” Gera said, explaining that the information must be presented in a way that matches the nuanced level that coaches and scouts view the game. “That gets you closer to bridging the gap between stopwatch speed and competitive speed.”Steve Gera was a special assistant to Browns Coach Rob Chudzinski in 2013 before starting a company that helps analyze competitive speed for N.F.L. teams.Credit…Tony Dejak/Associated PressGera, who has worked with franchises in multiple sports, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, added: “You can tell a football coach that one of his players moves at 22 miles an hour, but what really matters is how much space did the player create or take away on the field, right? That’s the name of the game.”Seven years ago, Belichick, who has been effusive on the game speed versus timed speed subject for more than a decade, invited an undrafted free agent cornerback to a tryout at the Patriots practice complex after the 2014 draft despite the player’s significantly inferior 4.62 second, 40-yard dash time. In the audition, Belichick observed an innate quickness on the field and immediately offered a contract.Later that season, the player, Malcolm Butler, closed the space between him and Seattle wide receiver Ricardo Lockette to make a Super Bowl-clinching interception.Said Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll of Butler that night: “The guy makes a great play that nobody would ever think he could do.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More