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Tom Brady says his packed schedule is taking a toll.
In his weekly newsletter, the former quarterback, 48, who is in his second season as a Fox Sports analyst, penned a thoughtful message to readers in which he admitted, “Last week it all finally caught up to me.”
Brady said he’s “been busy” recently, telling fans, “it’s been a crazy October.” The father of three explained he’s “more than a third of the way through the NFL season” and “school is in full swing for the kids.” Brady shares John “Jack” Edward Thomas with his ex-girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan, and two children with his ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen: Benjamin Rein and Vivian Lake.
He also noted that he’s had other obligations like the CardVault store opening and collaborations with IShowSpeed and Oz the Mentalist. Brady wrote, “I was rundown and a little under the weather. It happens to all of us at one point or another.”
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He continued, “Illness. Injury. No matter how careful or healthy you are, if you are in a lot of different places every week, interacting with lots of different people, doing lots of different things to maximize every waking hour of your day, eventually a bug is going to get you.”
The seven-time Super Bowl champ said that “rundown” feeling is “your body’s way of telling you to slow down a bit,” which led him to the question: “What do you do when that happens?”
Brady said it’s difficult to let himself slow down “because life doesn’t stop when you want (or need) to stop,” citing commitments to “work, family, [and] relationships” in the letter. “You’ve still got to show up for each of them as your best possible self,” he wrote, adding, “You’ve got to be resilient—physically, mentally and emotionally.”
He went on to share some of his wisdom regarding health and wellness, and detailed how he maintains his demanding schedule during the football season. Brady advised his readers to sleep nine hours a night — “if you can get it” — and stay hydrated. “I try to avoid being in the position of drinking water as a response to thirst,” he wrote.
Instead, Brady said he wants to “be ahead” on his hydration game. “It’s why drinking a bunch of water is one of the first things I do when I wake up, and why you will always see me with a water bottle somewhere nearby,” Brady wrote.
Brady famously un-retired from football in 2022 to play one more season in the NFL. In 2023, he opened up about how his health was affected after leaving the league.
“I’m down about 10 lbs.,” he said at the time, noting, “but I’m actually very fit right now.”
“I haven’t had the stress that I had while I was playing so that’s allowed me to focus a little bit more on my physical health,” Brady said on an episode of his Sirius XM podcast Let’s Go! With Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald and Jim Gray. “But I think it’s important for everyone. Physical and mental health is so important to all of us. Without that, what do we really have?”
He continued, “You could prioritize a lot of other things — career, kids, relationships, family, greater good, community. But at the end of the day, physical and mental health should sit at the top of the pyramid because if we don’t have that, we have nothing.”
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Despite his busy schedule these days, Brady announced last month that he’s somewhat returning to football once more.
Brady, Fanatics, Fox Sports and OBB Media will team up to put on the Fanatics Flag Football Classic — a global flag football event scheduled to take place at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as part of this year’s Riyadh Season — on March 21, 2026.
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In addition to Brady, other confirmed players include Rob Gronkowski, Odell Beckham Jr., Tyreek Hill, Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, CeeDee Lamb, Sauce Gardner, Myles Garrett, Brock Bowers and Maxx Crosby.
The tournament will be broadcast live on FOX Sports and streamed on Tubi, with Kevin Hart hosting, and Pete Carroll, Sean Payton and Kyle Shanahan serving as coaches.
