The Players' Coach by Tom Moore

Author:Tom Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2024-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

By the time we got to training camp the next year, Peyton Manning was being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Tom had grown very close to Peyton through the years. We had a day off from camp, and more than anything else, Tom wanted to make sure Peyton’s old Colts coaches got to be at the induction ceremony. So he very generously chartered a private jet to Canton, Ohio, and invited Bruce Arians, Clyde Christensen, and me to come with him so we could see Peyton become one of the NFL’s immortals.

The network cameras were all aimed at Brady when he entered the stadium in Canton for the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He was led backstage, where he and Manning greeted each other.

It was a great time for both quarterbacks. Manning was minutes away from unveiling his bust. Brady, finally out from under the COVID-19 protocols, was able to support his rival and receive congratulations for winning his seventh Super Bowl ring.

Manning began by saying he felt like he needed to run the hurry-up on his speech, which had been limited to six minutes for the first time ever because, prior to that, some would run more than a half hour.

Manning also acknowledged Brady in the audience: “And speaking of rivals, my good friend Tom Brady is here tonight. By the time Tom Brady is inducted in his first year of eligibility in the year 2035, he’ll only have time to post his acceptance speech on his Instagram account.”

Meanwhile, Brady had a big date circled on his calendar, his first trip back to Foxboro to play the New England Patriots on October 3.

For Brady to return to Gillette Stadium in front of those fans was going to be a special night. Tom got an enormous ovation when he came out for warm-ups but then once the game started, the Patriots fans were rooting like hell for their team, and he was playing like hell to beat them.

When Tom left the Patriots, there was a debate about whether those New England Super Bowls were fueled more by the genius of Tom Brady or by Bill Belichick. I don’t know if that debate completely drove him, but the fact that he won a Super Bowl without Belichick made him feel very good, for sure. He got to see there was another way to win.

Maybe he just wanted a change. Maybe he just wanted to see what it was like somewhere else. Because they always planned to honor him when he went back to New England, and obviously, the brass at New England were in touch with Tom. Whatever went on, time tends to heal, and it looks like it healed in this case.

It rained the whole game. It was a hard-fought, back-and-forth affair. Rookie Mac Jones played well for the Patriots, going 31 of 40 for 275 yards and 2 touchdowns. But Brady engineered one of his patented fourth-quarter drives. He got us into field goal range late in the game and Ryan Succop kicked the game-winner.

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