CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Soundbites from Tom Brady’s Best Buddies charity football game at Harvard on Friday night:
His participation as host: “It’s a great event. We have much more support this year than we did last year. This is something very close to me. Katie Meade is my buddy. She is a great person, a great woman, and I think she is a great representative of Best Buddies. It’s good to be here with her.”
Team workouts the last three days at BC: “It’s been fun; it’s been fun to see a lot of the guys. I think there was a lot of good work. You see a lot of the guys who came out to support this, with Wes [Welker] and Julian [Edelman] and Nate Solder, who is a rookie. This is a great event. Tedy [Bruschi] is out here. His new nickname is Kilimanja-Bru [in reference to his climb of Mount Kilimanjaro]. It’s been a lot of fun this week. This is a great way to cap it off.”
His health in recovering from January foot surgery: “I feel good, good enough to run around here and have fun. I’m excited for football season.”
How long he thinks it will be before returning to football: “Nobody knows. Hopefully soon. There has been a lot of positive news from both sides. Everyone is working hard for a great outcome. I’m confident that a lot of reasonable people will come to a very reasonable agreement.”
If he feels obligated as a leader of the team to bring players together: “No, there were a lot of people that were instrumental in getting everybody together. We have a lot of great leaders on our team. I’ve been here for a long time, so as a veteran on the team, not just a quarterback, there are a lot of guys who are really working hard. That’s what we need.”
Could lack of CBA progress reach a point where the football quality might be affected: “I hope not. Everyone is just dealing with it – the players are dealing with it as best we know how and the owners are. Like I said, hopefully there is a great outcome. I’m relatively confident that there will be.”
On the Bruins in the Stanley Cup: “It was exciting the other night. I wish we would have pulled it out. It was a bummer about the Celtics. The Red Sox had a tough four days. We have a pretty good thing going in Boston right now with our sports teams. We get such great support from our fans and from you guys who cover us and care so much about what we’re doing. I think it’s really a pleasure to play in front of people who really care.”
On having his name on NFL lawsuit and being a leader in that regard: “The players, we all stick together. We realize how important each one of us are to each other. A lot of guys really care about the game. The guys that have been around for a while understand what it takes for us to grow the league, to be a part of the business of the NFL, to be great representatives for the NFL, and to leave the NFL in better shape than when we came into it. I think that’s the responsibility of all players – young or old. A lot of guys really do a great job of that. So, like I said, I’ve seen a lot of things. I’m not as young as I used to be, but I also feel like the veteran players are really the ones that need to support what’s going on right now. Everyone does a great job of that.”
On if he got a haircut: "A little one, a little one."