Tom Brady backtracked and offered an apology after making some highly criticized comments comparing playing for the NFL to military deployments.
On the most recent episode of Brady’s Let’s Go podcast, the football legend equated NFL seasons for football players to military deployments.
“I almost look at like a football season like you’re going away on deployment for the military,” Brady said during his conversation with basketball star Kevin Durant. “And it’s like, ‘Man, here I go again.'”
Obviously, that comparison put Brady in some seriously hot waters. One Twitter user took Brady to task describing him as a clown.
AmVetSupport wrote, “Tom Brady says he looks at the football season like he is on the military and going away on deployment. Really Tom? You never served a day, so staying in a five star hotel, eating anything you want and talking to family every day is not the same, you clown.”
Jared Keller and Kyle Gun at Task & Purpose described Brady’s comments as “sort of bats**t crazy.”
They then went on to examine Brady’s comparison eventually concluding, “Brady plays football to entertain the masses. U.S. service members put their lives on the line to protect their freedoms. These two things are not the same.”
During a press conference on Thursday, Brady went out of his way to confront the issue and apologize for what he considered to be a “poor choice of words.”
“Before we start can I say one thing?” Brady asked right out of the gate. “Earlier this week I made a statement about playing football and the military, and it was a very poor choice of words. And I just want to express I that to any sentiments out there that people may have taken it in a certain way. So I apologize.”
Later in the press conference, Brady answered a follow-up question saying, “To be honest I don’t really want to expand on it too much.”
He continued, “I have a tremendous amount of gratitude to everyone who served. In the end, we play a game, and the military is defending our country. It’s two different things and I shouldn’t have made the comparison.”
What are your thoughts? Do you think is apology was genuine or just an attempt to brush away negative attention? Let us know in the comments below.
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