Man in the Arena Final Episode - Out Now

What Tom Brady is still playing for

Last week, we debuted the final episode of our series Man in the Arena following Tom Brady’s 2020 Super Bowl championship with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If you haven’t watched the episode yet, you can watch it here on ESPN+. Continuing our series from earlier this year, you’ll find a discussion of the episode below. Enjoy!

The tenth and final episode of our series Man in the Arena, now streaming on ESPN+, begins with a conversation about joy. “How do you bring the joy and the positive energy to your team to be the great leader that you want to ultimately be?” asks Tom Brady. He wouldn’t find joy in New England; he says that he knew the 2019-2020 season would be his last with the Patriots. Instead, we see shots of beaches and gentle, rolling waves. Brady’s search for positive energy would continue in Tampa Bay.

From there, we hear how Rob Gronkowski followed his quarterback to Florida, how the Bucs’ talent inspired Brady, and how things didn’t click immediately on the field. Of course, those things worked themselves out eventually, and Brady won his seventh Super Bowl. One of the most illuminating parts of the episode came at the very end, after Brady had hoisted the Lombardi once more. His father Tom Sr. was a guest, and the two of them talked at length about fatherhood. There were tears, and when Brady discussed his own children, the gentle waves we had seen just a short time earlier felt choppier now. “What I’d wish for my children is to find something they really love to do like I have,” he says. “But I think I’ve taken it to an extreme. There are imbalances in my life, and I hope they don’t take things as far as I’ve taken them…I wish them great success in whatever they do, but there’s a torment about me which I don’t wish upon them.”

I’ve thought of the series as a masterclass, a how-to manual of greatness written by one of the most dominant athletes of his generation. Each episode gave viewers a glimpse at a lesson Brady learned while chasing perfection: That it’s about who you surround yourself with, that you can always look for an edge, that you need to find a process and stick to it. Yet in this moment, at the very end, Brady seemed to look back on it all and shake his head.

The long hours, the relentless push, all the wins…it's like Brady was looking back and saying, “This is what it takes to be great. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Or maybe, not quite. Brady kept talking. He never outright acknowledged his retirement/unretirement in the episode, but he came closest when he said, “I know there’s time for me to be sitting in the stands, and I know there’s time for me to do other things. But there’s still a desire for me to win.” He paused. “When you’re a man in the arena, there’s no thrill like that.”

In the beginning of his career, a Super Bowl berth meant that Brady could prove naysayers wrong. Later, it was about showing he was the best ever. Now, Brady is chasing something else entirely. Throughout his 22-year career, he’s won and won and won. The thrill of victory has been constant. But the definition of what it means to win has changed along the way.

In 2022, Brady wants to be a better father, he wants to cherish his family, and although he never said it outright, those comments made me think that the reason he wants to play one more year is to show his children that there is another path. Brady doesn’t want them to be like him. He doesn’t want them to have his “torment,” as he calls it. But he does want them to be great.

So, he’s going to show them another way. He’s going to show them that you can be the best quarterback in the league and a great father as well. He’s going to have balance. He’s going to play with joy.

And if he does all that, he’s going to win—in exactly the way that he defines it.

🏎️ Forty years ago, L.W. Wright was an unknown who raced a NASCAR event at Talladega. He hasn’t been heard from since—until now.

😱 Try not to smile watching this video of the Men in Blazers’ Roger Bennett seeing his beloved Everton team stave off relegation.

🍁 This might just be the biggest Toronto Maple Leafs fan in the world. Would you want your house to look like this?

⚾ Clayton Kershaw just became the Dodgers all-time leader in strikeouts. I loved this look at how his family section has changed from strikeout one to number 2,697.