“Tom Brady wasn’t just my quarterback, he was family”: Former Patriots OC Charlie Weis recalls how Tom Brady supported his family during a near-death experience

Charlie Weis, former offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots, speaks on how Tom Brady was there to support his wife and family when he was on the edge of life and death.

Tom Brady is widely regarded as the greatest football player of all time. With 7 Super Bowl victories, he has a list of accolades unlike anything we have ever seen. 5x Super Bowl MVP, 3x NFL MVP, 5x All-Pro and 14x Pro-bowler are some of his achievements. His longevity is also unprecedented. Drafted in 2000, he is still one of the best QBs in the entire league 21 years later, at age 44.

He spent 20 seasons of his career with the New England Patriots, as a cornerstone of one of the most dominant dynasties sports fans have ever witnessed. Under the coaching of Bill Belichick, the Patriots made it to 9 Super Bowls, and won 6 of them. Brady then decided to take his talents to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In his first season with the team, he lead them to the Super Bowl, where they beat the defending champions, Kansas City Chiefs, in a dominant 31-9 victory.

For Brady’s 40th birthday, ESPN writer Mike Reiss wrote an article compiling numerous Brady-stories from many of his friends, teammates and coaches. Among those was a story from former Patriots OC Charlie Weis. He recounted the time when he almost died due to complications from a gastric bypass surgery, and how Brady was there to support his wife and his family.

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What was the incident that strengthened the bond between Weis and Brady?

In 2002, Weis had a gastric bypass surgery that only Brady and Patriots HC Bill Belichick knew about. The surgery was not very complicated. The initial idea was to get the surgery and leave the next day after a full night of observation. However, the next morning of the surgery, when Brady came to visit Weis in the hospital, he was hanging on the edge of life and death. He was in the Intensive Care Unit and his blood pressure had plummeted. He was in as bad a shape as can be.

Weis and his family were new in New England. His wife, Maura, was under tremendous pressure of taking care of their kids and looking after her husband who is critical in the hospital. However, she was able to pull through partly because Brady was there with her the entire time. The surgery happened on Friday, and Brady was there with Weis’ wife throughout Saturday and also came back on Sunday.

On Sunday, Weis revealed that he had flatlined, implying that his heart had stopped beating and that he was actually dead, before he was brought back by defibrillation. During that time, Brady was there with Weis’ wife. He said to her, “I wonder when he comes back after this if he will yell at me any less”. Brady and Maura had a moment there, when they both jokingly said that that was never going to happen. Brady’s level-headed nature in such a trying time, at such a young age is a surprisingly excellent attribute.

Brady was only 25 years of age when this incident had occurred. He had just started living life as an NFL player and he was watching one of his coaches, someone who he was very close with, possibly on his death-bed. But the way Brady dealt with the situation, and comforted his coach’s wife, strengthened the bond between a player and a coach based on something completely unrelated to football.

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