No sugar, no soda, no fruits. No bread, or rice, or even potatoes. In bed every night at 8:30 pm on the dot. This is the kind of lifestyle Tom Brady adhered to—the so-called TB12 method—during his playing days (and likely continues to do so to this day). Doesn’t sound like a very fun guy, right? Well, to have his former teammates tell it, we couldn’t be more wrong.
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Since his retirement, teammates have chipped away at the uber-focused, competitive, and obsessively driven image Brady fostered during his playing career. During a recent appearance on The Pivot Podcast, Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs, who protected Brady for three years from 2020 to 2022, shared that his old QB was known to crack a joke or two.
“There’s a side of Tom that nobody gets to see. Everyone sees the competitor he is, the player he is on Sundays. But nobody sees like, he tells Dad jokes like a mother—and I was like, ‘Dude, that’s not funny.’ And he’d laugh at it, he’d always get a kick out of it,” said the four-time Pro Bowler.
Brady was in his 21st season when 21-year-old Wirfs was drafted in 2020. One would think the massive age disparity between the two (Wirfs was born in 1999, one year before Brady was drafted in the 2000 NFL Draft) would make it tough for them to connect. Instead, that very gap became a source of humor that strengthened their bond.
“He’d ask me, ‘How old are you Tristan?’ I’d be like, ’21’, he’d be like, ‘Jeeez’. Because he was 22 years older than me, so I was like, ‘You were born a year or two after my mom, Tom!’ And he’s like, ‘Shut up dude! Don’t tell me that!!! But no, Tom’s an all-time guy. I love him to death”
Brady was undoubtedly a massive influence on Wirfs’ career. The 6’5″, 320-pound tackle had him as his QB for the first three years of his NFL journey. And Brady wasn’t the only all-timer Wirfs lined up with in those early 2020s Bucs offenses. As he ran through the list of superstar teammates from his first years in the league, he aptly described it as resembling “a Madden team.”
“There was a time where our huddle was—we had Tom, Gronk, AB, Leonard Fournette, Julio Jones, I was like this is a Madden team. This is crazy I’m playing with these guys. I played with these guys on Madden, now I’m in the huddle with them. I remember sometimes I’d be looking around like, ‘Man, this is crazy.'”
That group went all the way and dominated the burgeoning Kansas City Chiefs dynasty in Super Bowl 55 following Wirfs’ rookie year in 2020. After a 13-4 season in 2021, they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams in the Divisional Round. After an 8-9 year and an ugly Wild Card exit in 2022, the short Tom Brady era in Tampa ended.
But the rest of the young core continued on, now with Baker Mayfield under center. Wirfs, specifically, has not skipped a beat since going from Brady to Baker. He was a 1st-Team All-Pro and Pro Bowler in 2021, 2nd-Team All-Pro and Pro Bowler in 2022, a Pro Bowler in 2023, and a 1st-Team All-Pro and Pro Bowler once again in 2024.
That last 1st-Team All-Pro honor carried extra significance. By earning that distinction at left tackle, he became the first player in NFL history to be named a 1st-Team All-Pro at both right and left tackle. He switched to the blind side ahead of the 2023 campaign.
