This week, Tom Brady announced his retirement from American Football after his Tampa Bay Buccaneers were defeated in the NFC Championship game - meaning the 44-year-old Boston native will miss the chance to lift his EIGHTH Lombardi trophy.
After scraping through the 2000 NFL Draft as the 199th pick (out of 254), the gangly Michigan alumnus moved to the New England Patriots and went on to become the greatest Quarterback of all time and more than reach his potential. But he is even more than that.
Brady’s is one of a select group of names that transcend sport, ingraining themselves into pop culture on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. You might not know much about basketball, but you know who Michael Jordan and Lebron James are. Babe Ruth is a name known by more people than the sport of baseball itself. People who don’t care for soccer (unfortunately, these people do exist) will still be able to tell you who Cristiano Ronaldo and Pele are.
It is not just Brady’s name and image that command respect even outside his sport. You don’t get to remain at the pinnacle of your profession for more than two decades without doing a few things right, and in this article we’re going to explore the lessons we as soccer coaches (and our players) can learn from the traits that made Brady great.
Earn it every single day
Even grassroots coaches and players will feel the temptation to become complacent, or rest on their laurels after a convincing win at the weekend. - “Things are going well, let’s take our foot off the gas because if we do the same thing next week we’ll win again. Maybe we don’t even need to train”.
You wouldn’t find that sort of attitude creeping into Tom Brady’s psyche. Even as a perpetual winner, he would always recognise the importance of ‘the grind’.
He said in 2011: “I would bring a level of competitiveness to practice for myself, because if I didn’t play well, I didn’t think I’d be playing on the weekend. So when I come to The Patriots, that’s how I treat Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
“I’m out there at practice today and it’s not been the best day of practice and I think ‘man, I sure hope they’re not looking for my replacement after today’. I want to earn it every single day because that’s what’s going to be best for the team.”
At this point, Brady had won three Super Bowls (with two of them as MVP). If he doesn’t believe he has room for complacency, why should you? Do you encourage your players to compete against the player they were yesterday? You will benefit from using our player development app TopTekkers as part of your training schedule.
The Tom Brady you see on the field, and the Tom Brady you see lifting Lombardi Trophies, didn't happen without the Tom Brady sweating buckets both on the training field and in his spare time.
Leading by example
On ‘earning it every single day’, Brady would expect the same of all his team mates. He added: “If you can't preach that message to your teammates, and you think you’re entitled to something, you’re in the wrong business and you're going to lose a lot of games. I think you’ve got to get up and earn it every single day.”
Players are more inclined to follow someone who works as hard as they can for the betterment of the team. Communication on and off the field is the key to building morale, trust, and a sense of togetherness amongst the team.
For coaches this is relevant too, as we strive to create and nurture these on-pitch leaders through what we demand of them in each training session.
Hard work beats talent if talent doesn’t work hard
These days, you see a lot of soccer players with bags of natural talent, superior genetics, and an apparent pre-disposition for success - but it rarely translates that way. How many times have we seen players light up the world stage only to disappointingly burn out by their early 20s?
You can have all the tricks up your sleeve and rippling muscles on your torso, but if you don’t have the mental toughness it takes to ‘earn it every day’, you’re going to fall short of fulfilling your potential. And whether reaching our potential is coaching a team to the World Cup, or simply creating a fun soccer environment for a group of local children, everyone should be working towards reaching their potential.
Brady said: “A lot of times I find that people who are blessed with the most talent don’t ever develop that attitude, and the ones who aren’t blessed in that way are the most competitive and have the biggest heart”.
Here, Brady even goes as far as to suggest that raw talent can be a hindrance to developing a winning mindset. Will a talented child who has had it easy all the way through the Foundation Phase and into their Development Phase ever gain that edge that comes with having to overcome adversity? We should be mindful that mistakes, losses, and challenges are better for development than uninterrupted winning and success.
On the importance of mindset, Brady added: ”Every quarterback can throw a ball; every running back can run; every receiver is fast; but that mental toughness that you talk about translates into competitiveness."
Performance drives results, not the other way round
We don’t learn anything if we place too much importance on the result at the weekend. As coaches, we must have long term goals, and have the processes in place in order to reach them. With an appropriate technical framework in place, our players will have the tools they need in order to perform the tasks we are asking of them. Once we get that right, the results will follow as a byproduct.
Brady said: “You have to believe in your process. You have to believe in the things that you are doing to help the team win. I think you have to take the good with the bad. But things don't correct themselves. You've got to go out there and work hard to correct them."
Good leaders attract good talent
After nearly 20 years at the helm of the Patriots’ 21st century dominance, in 2020 Brady was convinced to move south to warmer climes in Florida with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team whose one appearance in the Super Bowl came eighteen years prior.
And what do Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown, and Leonard Fournette all have in common? They’re all champions who immediately joined forces on the Buccaneers when Tom Brady came to town. And guess what happened that season - ring number seven for Tom Brady.
Although not strictly their leader in the hierarchy of the team, Brady’s command of the gridiron and his winning mentality made quality players want to follow him into battle. The way Brady has always led by example is infection for all who block and catch for him.
They say that people don’t leave bad companies (or soccer clubs), they leave bad bosses (or leaders) - the opposite is also true. Gronk would have wanted to follow Brady whether he joined the Bucs or the Browns.
Realising your potential
Back in 1995, when Brady was at high school, he might have gone down a different path. Before committing to Michigan on a football scholarship, he was actually drafted by the now-defunct baseball outfit Montreal Expos, who saw him as a decent catching prospect with a 6'4" body that "had room to get stronger and add weight" according to one scout.
So like many top American athletes, he could have pursued a career in a number of sports due to his transferrable technical abilities. But before he became the most famous American Football player ever, what would you have described Tom Brady's potential as?
The scary thing is, there are players out there with even more potential than Brady - with more natural talent, and stronger physical genetics. But without the 'mental toughness' shown by the GOAT over the entirety of his career, they won't get anywhere near their own full potential.
What’s your Super Bowl ring?
Tom Brady’s retirement comes at a time when he was running out of fingers to adorn with Super Bowl rings, but not everyone can set The Big Game as their goal. What’s your Super Bowl? Whether it’s winning the cup, winning one game, or creating an environment in which your players can thrive technically, physically, and socially, you could learn a thing or two from Tom Brady.
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