Buccaneers Coach Addresses If Brady’s Divorce Impacted His Play This Season

The Buccaneers’ loss Thursday marked the first time in Brady’s pro career that he’s dropped to two games below .500.

Hours after Tom Brady confirmed on Instagram that he and Gisele Bündchen recently finalized their divorce, Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles faced a question many are likely wondering. 

How has the looming split impacted the star quarterback’s play this season? 

“I can’t say for sure. You know Tom is a very private person. He does his job when he’s out here and he smiles a lot and that’s really all you can go by,” Bowles said, per the Tampa Bay Times’ Rick Stroud. “I think everybody, no matter what profession, you go through some things, it’s how you handle it and come out of it. I’m sure he has something weighing on when he leaves work or everything. I don’t know how much. I guess that’s a question for him.”

The 2022 campaign can be described as rocky at best for Brady as a loss to the Ravens on Thursday marked the first time in his 23-year professional career that his team dropped to two games below .500.  The last time the quarterback was at this mark came during the 1998 season while at Michigan, according to The Athletic. 

After his brief retirement during the offseason, there were reports of marital issues between Brady and Bündchen, and the quarterback eventually took a leave of absence during training camp to “deal with personal things,” Bowles said at the time. 

“The decision to end a marriage is never easy but we have grown apart and while it is, of course, difficult to go through something like this, I feel blessed for the time we had together and only wish the best for Tom always,” Bündchen wrote in a statement of her own on Instagram.

Bowles was also asked how difficult it is to deal with personal issues in a demanding job like Brady’s.

The coach responded during the press conference, “This is not a new or a different type of deal for a lot of people in the world. It's life. You're going to have this, whether you're a billionaire or whether you're broke. You're going to have ups and downs, deaths in the family, hard times."

He continued, “That's just part of life. You have to navigate as best you can and keep moving.”