HOUSTON – The crowd at Tom Brady’s podium was about 15 people deep all the way around as Super Bowl Opening Night.
Beginning with a seven-minute 1-on-1 with Willie McGinest for the NFL Network, Brady fielded questions for an hour, handling everything from Lady Gaga to Donald Trump to why he advised his son to pick up Devonta Freeman for his fantasy team.
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Brady fielded a pair of questions about Trump in the 30 minutes I staked out his podium. The first ones, posed by Steve Buckley of The Boston Herald, included an allusion to “what’s going on with the world.”
“What’s going on with the world, Buck?” asked Brady. A second entreaty from Buckley (I couldn’t hear it), included the response, “And what’s that? I haven’t paid much attention to what’s going on. I’m just a positive person. I just want the best for everybody, so …”
Brady responded to the second Trump-related question saying, “Like I said, I’m just a positive person. I want the best for everybody.”
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It wasn’t a response that will satiate the masses crowing for Brady to lay bare his soul when it comes to his relationship with Trump and what platforms of Trump’s Brady opposes or supports. He made it clear he wasn’t discussing Trump earlier on Monday speaking to Kirk Minihane and Gerry Callahan on WEEI.
Last week, he told the duo, “I always try to keep it in context because for 16 years you know someone before maybe he was in the position that he was in. He’s been very supportive of me for a long time. It’s just a friendship. I have a lot of friends. I call a lot of people.
“Why does everybody make such a big deal?” he added. “I don’t understand it. I don’t want to get into it, but if you know someone, it doesn’t mean you agree with everything they say or they do,” Brady said. “You have a lot of friends in your life. I think there are things that are based in your own dealings with someone that is a personal dealing, not a public dealing. Because you have personal experiences.”
When asked by a young reporter who his hero is, Brady replied, “My Dad.” He choked up during the response, saying he looks up to Tom Brady Sr. “every day.”
A couple of questions were posed to Brady about his place in history as he prepares to start his seventh Super Bowl.
In both cases, he said it wasn’t something he focuses on, saying, “I don’t think about those historical type things. … (Playing football) wasn’t ever done to be in some discussion or ranking.”