ulysses.

this post is for nc, rsj, the father of rsj, and my cat.



so, tom brady is out for the season.

dont worry, im not gonna do what you all think im gonna do, which is, you know, flip out.

i actually think this is a good thing.

let's go back a bit.

i loved tom brady b.c he was the nerd's qb. he was drafted by the erstwhile montreal expos as a catcher - the cerebral cortex of the players on a baseball team. initially relegated to backup under brian griese at michigan, brady supposedly hired a psychologist to help him cope with his frustration. (that's enough links btw.) and he was a legit ls & a student, not a kinisieology 'student-athlete.'

then, even as our freaking starting qb, brady wasnt the celebrity he should have been. those honors went to the newly-arrived, over-hyped drew henson, whom, interestingly, the yankees had drafted as a third baseman - the biceps, and maybe triceps, of a baseball team. henson was so highly touted by everyone and their mother that brady had to cede some game time to him. what's worse, i think he had to cede some tri-delts to him. no matter; brady started every game for two years, and ended his college career as orange bowl mvp.

nevertheless, he was drafted in the sixth round. he was scrawny. hes built up his arm, but hes never been much of a 'physical specimen.' logically, it was the most cerebral of coaches, belichick, who took a flier on him.

a coupla years later, drew bledsoe went down, brady became the pats' starting qb, the team won three super bowls in two seconds, and somewhere in there, brady became tom.

he went from being the brain to being the face.

dont get me wrong; in the process, brady established himself, in an improbably short amount of time, as one of the greatest football players ever - no small feat.

it's just that something was lost in that process.

but brady's career has been so storied, that you just know he's a favorite son of the football gods.

so they must have taken him down for a reason.

theyre not content to make brady's career great; theyre gonna make it epic.

coming off the most crushing super bowl loss in history - a game which, if he had won, would have propelled him into relative immortality - brady is now gonna have to sit out for a year.

hes gonna have to chew on that bone without a chance at redemption for a whole friggin year.

it's a blessing in disguise.

this is going to be a transformative experience.

brady is now in what joseph campbell called the belly of the whale. (this most often happens to athletes via injury, but it can happen by other means, such as imprisonment.)

this inward journey is going to turn brady into the type of transcendent (yes, i use that word a lot) athlete he never could have become inside the gym.

as campbell puts it:
Appearing to have died by being swallowed or having their flesh scattered, the hero is transformed and becomes ready for the adventure ahead.

in other words, when all is said and done, hes not only gonna come back to reclaim the lombardi trophy. tom is gonna find brady again.

this is the stuff of legend.