Tom Brady doesn’t want to hear excuses for the Los Angeles Rams from their season-opening loss against the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia.
On the season-opening edition of #AskTom , Brady made it clear he doesn’t care about the narrative that the Rams may have been jet-lagged from their last-minute flight to Australia before their 27-7 loss to the 49ers.
“There was one thing I thought about during all of that: How much trash people were talking about the stupid ride,” Brady said. “You know what matters? Playing good football. I don’t give a s— if you show up five minutes before the game, an hour before the game, a week before the game — when you show up and go out on the field, complete passes, make blocks, make shots and play good football. There’s nothing more important than execution.
“Yeah, all the things could be better executed on game day — the travel, the food — but at the end of the day, go out there and play well. That’s how I settled the argument.”
The Rams didn’t arrive in Melbourne until just over 24 hours before kick-off, a move that was widely questioned at the start of the season opener. Meanwhile, the 49ers headed Down Under more than a week before the game, getting acclimated ahead of their dominant win.
That was just one of several things Brady punched in his mailbag. He also took a question on the Super Bowl LI call sheet he showed during the Week 1 broadcast of the Washington Commanders-Philadelphia Eagles game before explaining some offensive routes and concepts.
Here is the first complete Ask Tom of the 2026 season.
Q: Does the terminology change from year to year, or do I have the complete Josh McDaniels playbook now?
Brady: You may have a few words in the playbook, but you never know what Josh is cooking. The Super Bowl roster was all about who we had on the team, what our strengths were against who Atlanta had as a defense and what we thought their weaknesses were.
I thought the most important thing I was showing during that game was that we worked really hard for two weeks to segment all those plays in the right spots and, ultimately, Josh had to call them at the right time. There is still a lot of tweaking in the game, but I just wanted the viewer to know that the process for placing calls on the call sheet is a painstaking process. It’s all about constant conversations from everybody, working to get all the calls into the right box, so that when this situation comes up, it’s really easy for Josh to find it, queue up what he wants to call, and then relay it to me as quickly as possible.
It’s not just a random bunch of games. It’s not a playbook; it’s a call sheet. In the playbook, there’s probably 1,500, 2,000 different calls you can make. We whittled it down to 100, 120. Of those, maybe 65, 70 were actually called and there’s always a little bit of tweaking during the game to make sure you’re giving yourself the best chance to win that day as well.
Q: Do you have to memorize the call sheet? If we delete this, do you have to write it in yourself?
Brady: No, it’s literally impossible. There’s no way it’s going to happen. There’s just a lot of vernacular, so to speak, on those call sheets; are very detailed. You have to know every move – it could be a Zip, Zap, Zat, Whack, Hat, Home, Condo – I’m not really (making up words). It just sounds like (I’m making up words).
It’s called fole football, and it’s a language of its own. Look, I was really good at Spanish and French and all that. I wasn’t bad at football. I knew my football language.
Tom Brady showed this call sheet from the Patriots’ Super Bowl LI win on Sunday’s Commanders-Eagles broadcast.
Q: On the “Gronk & Jules” show, they said you’d tell them to commit if you were going the wrong way. How will you know when this will happen?
Brady: I think there were some players — Jules and Gronk — who didn’t mind advertising a little bit because, sometimes, let’s say you called a route inside, but the defender jumps inside. I wouldn’t mind if, instead of pressing it in, I’d rather press it in and work it a bit from the outside to still find the open spot. There was no point running in a covered area of the field. You don’t want to enter another guy’s zone, so to speak.
What you really want to do is still find a soft spot, but that soft spot moves four or five feet in each direction. I think the one guy that I really look up to in the NFL right now that has tremendous feel, and has for a long time, is Travis Kelce. He and Patrick (Mahomes) have great chemistry. Travis will never run in a place that is covered. He will always back off a bit or run through that area to find the next open area. That’s what great footballers do. And it takes a long time to even get to that spot, between a quarterback and a receiver. But when it works, it’s magic.
Q: Were Jules and Gronk some of the best you played with?
Brady: They really were. I put Wes Welker in that mix. I threw Mike Evans and Chris Godwin into that mix. I put James White in that mix. Kevin Faulk in that mix. They didn’t want to get into covered areas, and I don’t blame them, because if you’re running into covered areas, guess what I wasn’t doing? They were covered, I wasn’t throwing the ball to them.
Travis Kelce is one of the best players at finding open spots on the field, according to Tom Brady. (Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images)
Q: What’s your take on the 49ers-Rams road trip debate? How did you handle long flights before matches?
Brady: This is a big question. It’s really top of mind, too. There was one thing I thought about during all of that: How much trash people were talking about the stupid trip. You know what matters? Playing good football. I don’t give a shit if you show up five minutes before the game, an hour before the game, a week before the game – when you show up and go on the field, complete the passes, make the blocks, make the tackles and play good football. There is nothing more important than execution.
Yes, all things can create better execution on game day – travel, food – at the end of the day, go out there and play well. That’s how I resolved the debate”.
Q: You called one of Jalen Hurts’ completions in Week 1 the “Butterfly with Sore Legs.” You made my English teacher proud on Sunday. Can you tell us a little about your literary background?
Brady: I like to tip my hat to Mr. Ralph Stark, my sophomore English teacher at Junipero Serra High School. Thank you for all the C-plus grades you gave me that helped me continue my athletic career. I was not the best student; you know that. I have always been very good at your quizzes.
I had many friends who helped me; they did the test in period 2 when i had the test in period 4 and helped me with some of the answers. But I owe it to Mr. Stark and all the other English teachers who helped me through the Shakespearean period, in which I was also talented.
