Brady’s Car Crash: Will This Nightmare Ever End?

Added on Sep 13, 2010 by Jason Kearney in

NFL

OK, Boston fans and mainstream sports media types–you’re making this *way* too easy. We know you overreact to everything. We know that you think the entire universe revolves around you. And we’re happy that Brady wasn’t injured in his minor fender bender. But will you please let it go already? It’s not that big a deal.

Here’s the situation–Brady was on his way to practice when a vehicle ran a red light in the Back Bay and crashed into his luxury sled. If you’ve ever tried to drive in Boston, you’re aware that within the city limits you’re lucky to crack 30 MPH on the speedometer. Being a NFL quarterback and all, Brady reacted quickly and took evasive action which may or may not have minimized the impact. Not surprisingly, Brady’s $80,000 Audi S8 took the hit well and the Patriots’ franchise QB walked away without a scratch.

The story should end there, but Boston being Boston it didn’t. The blathering idiots at ESPN and other mainstream sports outlets have fanned the flames as well. The general reaction would be appropriate had Brady walked away from a plane crash, but not a minor fender bender. The most over the top reaction came from Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft who proclaimed Brady’s ‘survival’ of the fender bender an actual ‘miracle’ though he stopped short of suggesting that his quarterback deserved beatification.

Now we’ve got a hysterical article from ESPN Boston detailing Brady’s reaction to the ‘crash and aftermath’ (their verbiage, not mine). Brady sounds fairly nonplussed by the entire incident:

“I’m telling you, when it happened, I didn’t even know what to do, because you’re just in shock I was kind of sitting there in the car, looking around, trying to get my bearings.”

“And then I got out of the car and I saw a woman and I said, ‘Are you OK?’ And she said, ‘Yeah.’ And she said, ‘How are you?’ I said, ‘I’m fine.” And I was just kind of looking around, I was looking in the other car to make sure they were OK.”

“The next thing, a guy says, ‘Hey, do you want to call 911?’ I said, ‘God, that would be a good idea, wouldn’t it?’ So I did that. But I didn’t even think about doing that. I was just thinking, ‘How am I going to — I’ve got to call [Bill] Belichick, I’m going to be late [for practice].’ And then once I got home, then it really hits you.”

Now except for the part about calling Bill Belichick (admittedly not a bad guy to call in an emergency), that’s pretty much how any adult in the country would handle a minor traffic accident. Brady went on to give more detail, including a near miss of a pedestrian who got a scare but was unharmed:

“I thought we hit her. I swear to God. It was like ‘The Matrix.’ When the cars hit, I saw all the glass kind of explode. Then I saw her go flying. I thought, ‘Oh, my God’ as we’re kind of skidding to a stop. I saw her go flying back.”

“My hands were at 10 and 2, I mean, I was doing everything right. I can’t always say that. Sometimes, the way I drive is a bit more dangerous. It was one of those fluky things.”

Here’s the deal–I like Brady, and I’m the furthest thing from a Boston ‘homa’ that you’ll ever meet. He’s a great player and seems like a generally good kid. The way the media has covered this, however, has been laughable. The way this particular article is written tries to make Brady sound like he was in a state of sheer terror. Even a minor car accident is a shock and shakes you up, but given the choice I’ll take a 30 MPH crash in a marvel of German engineering over running from monsters like Ray Lewis on Sundays. Brady is doing his job with the Boston media, which embarrassingly has gone apoplectic.

To the surprise of no one, the driver that ran the red light and hit Brady has retained an attorney and is trying to milk this like a big dairy cow. He remains in the hospital and will apparently be going the neck brace route until Tom scratches out a check. His attorney has made it sound like he’s Lee Majors in the opening credits of ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ and is ‘a man barely alive’ Police cited the other driver for running a red light, though he says it was green. Here’s a tip–barring irrefutable evidence to the contrary you’re not going to win a game of ‘he said/he said’ against Tom Brady in Boston. Might as well include Larry Bird, Carl Yastrzemski, Wes Welkah and the Red Auerbach estate as co-defendants for all the good it’ll do. Brady sent some flowers and since the other guy was totally at fault that’s more than he really has an obligation to do.

Glad that Brady is OK and we’ll likely see him chip off some cheddar to the other guy to make this all go away. Now let the por guy get back to cashing those big checks, playing football and going home to his supermodel wife.