For most of his Patriots career, Tom Brady perfected the art of presenting a button-downed media presence. Now that he's a media guy and a business man, though, the former New England quarterback is taking the gloves off.
Brady's latest passive-aggressive putdown occurred during a business presentation that was covered by the Harvard Business Review. His interviewer was Nitin Nohria, a former Harvard Business School Dean, and it was based on the general concept of leadership principles.
Brady vs. Belichick, one more time
While Brady downplayed the ongoing debate about who deserves more credit, he didn't exactly hold back about Belichick's motivational style.
"We all felt fortunate to play for him, and there were many benefits to his approach," he explained. "But his motivational style--often based on fear--was sometimes difficult."
He went on to explain that he often played "good cop" to counter his coach's negative approach, taking a personal approach to his teammates' well-being by learning all he could about their families to show how much he cared for them.
"He was fortunate to have someone like me who could recognize where the team was emotionally, rally the troops, and pull people together," Brady added.
Tom Brady unloads on his fellow NFL players
The former superstar didn't exactly hold back about the players he went up against during his 20+ year career. He lit up players who the play the blame game when things go wrong, saying, "They make excuses and place the blame on everyone else, including referees, teammates, and coaches."
That comment is bound to draw criticism when Brady makes his broadcast debut for Fox in a couple of weeks. He probably won't name names, but he will definitely find himself pressured by his new bosses at FoxSports to leak out some controversial players in that area.
Brady took his own unique approach to that problem with his own teammates, saying that a lot of NFL players are only playing at 70-80 percent of their ability. His goal was to get more out of them, but it wasn't always easy.
"I wish I had a foolproof method for going into any situation where a player is giving 70 percent and finding a way to squeeze out that remaining 30 percent," he lamented. "But by modeling team-focused behavior and creating higher expectations and accountability, I could reliably get another 5 percent or 10 percent out of players."
Going beyond business analytics
While that approach sounds incredibly precise, Brady also took a more informal approach to motivating specific teammates. The examples he used during the interview were Julian Edelman and Randy Moss, who required completely different approaches.
"If you wanted Julian, who had incredible mental toughness, to play his best, the way to do it was to tick him off," Brady said. "He'd glare at me and be so angry, but I knew he'd channel that energy to prove me wrong and go out and play great."
The mercurial Moss, meanwhile, responded better to being treated with kid gloves and ego stroking as a general rule.
"Randy, who's a Hall of Fame receiver, responded better to validation," Brady explained. "Even in practice, if I went too long without throwing the ball to him, I'd go over and say how much I valued him and remind him that I was always looking for him on every play. I wanted to make sure he never slowed down."
Fast-forward into Brady's future
The former superstar certainly hasn't slowed down as he prepares for his new career as a broadcaster. He's been doing all kinds of prep work, according to reports, most recently working behind the scenes during various preseason games as he continues to do his homework.
It's a promising development for NFL fans for sure. If Brady can be half as intriguing in his NFL debut as he was in this interview, we'll all definitely be tuning in and looking forward to whatever he has to say.
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