Pat Patriot
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- Mar 19, 2019
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Tom Brady has gained weight without changing his diet.
The 42-year-old Patriots quarterback continues to adjust to a new helmet, and he explained to Tom Curran of NBCSportsBoston.com that the new model selected by Brady is heavier than his old one.
“I’ve been wearing the same thing for, you know, forever,” Brady said. “You get used to one thing, one feel . . . this [helmet] is a pound heavier, so it’s 25 percent heavier on your head. That takes a lot of getting used to. I wish it was lighter. I tried to make it lighter and they couldn’t make it lighter. . . . I mean, add 25 percent to everything. Add 25 percent to your pen, or 25 percent smaller keys on your keyboard, and tell me how that feels. It’s a little different.”
Brady had a one-year grace period to transition out of the Riddell VSR-4 helmet, which the league and the NFL Players Association determined in 2018 does not perform well enough to be used in NFL games. Brady went back and forth between his old helmet and a new model last year before involuntarily ditching his model of choice for 2019.
The good news for Brady is that, even though he has had to give up his favorite helmet, he continues to wear his favorite shoulder pads, which he has used for a quarter of a century.
“I’ve worn them for 25 years,” Brady said of his upper-body protective device. “They’ve gotten reconditioned a little bit, but I think once you find something you like, you kind of stick with it. I’ve always kind of liked the way they felt, the shape of them. People have tried to put me in a lot of other ones.”
For now, the NFL hasn’t banned certain types of shoulder pads. Until they do, Brady will keep wearing the ones that have worked for him.