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New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady neither confirmed nor denied whether he sustained a concussion during the 2016 season while answering questions from reporters Friday for the first time since the day after Super Bowl LI. Brady's wife, Gisele Bundchen, said in May on "CBS This Morning" that her husband suffered a concussion last season and in other years.
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"I don't want to get into things that happened in my past, certainly medical history and so forth. I really don't think that's anybody's business," Brady said after the team's practice at Gillette Stadium. "What happened last year ... I'm focused on this year and improving and working on things I need to get better at.
"So that's how I approach everything. I'm not sitting here worried about last year, or five years ago. There are other people that do worry about that -- my wife, or my parents, or my sisters, people that love me and care about me. But I do the best I can do to be prepared to play -- mentally and physically -- and I give the game everything I can."
Bundchen, during the CBS interview, was asked by Charlie Rose of her thoughts on Brady's plans to play into his mid-40s and whether she wants him to retire from football.
"I just have to say, as a wife, as you know (the NFL) is not the most, let's say, unaggressive sport. Football, he had a concussion last year," she said. "He has concussions pretty much every -- I mean we don't talk about it. But he has concussions and I don't really think it's a healthy thing for your body to go through. You know, that kind of aggression all the time, that cannot be healthy for you. I'm planning on having him be healthy and do a lot of fun things when we're like 100 I hope."
Brady, who turned 40 on Thursday, was asked about the chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) study released last week that found 99 percent of the brains donated by families of former NFL players and examined by researchers were diagnosed with the condition.
"You're not blind to it as a player. That's why I believe in so much of being proactive with your health," Brady told reporters in the news conference. "I think when you're a player, and you see other players before you that did things a certain way and what's transpired with their health or well-being, and then you learn from it. I think that's the things I've really tried to incorporate in my own life.
"So I'm confident in what I do. I'm confident in the things I do and the ways I train, you know. But it's a contact sport, and I think we all understand that. There are a lot of great benefits that football brings you, (but) certainly you can be put in harm's way. So you just do the best you can do as a player and, obviously, it's great that there is more awareness for those types of things. That's been a very important topic, certainly. But you just try to be proactive and take care of your body the best way you can."
Brady collected his fifth Super Bowl ring in February when the Patriots overcome a 25-point deficit in the third quarter to defeat the Atlanta Falcons in overtime.
Brady remains confident heading into his 18th NFL season.
"There's a lot of talent and guys certainly have worked hard but we're just at the beginning like everybody else," Brady said. "The thing about football is you're going to get out of it what you put into it. Nothing is really given to you and it's very competitive. As we saw last year, the margin between winning and losing is very, very small, so anything can happen.
"There's a long time before the games start counting in the standings. There's a lot of improvement we can make. But it's been fun to come out here and see what the guy's mental toughness and attitude and work ethic is all about. The makeup of the team, that's where your character is built. We're still at the beginning but it's been a lot of fun to be out here."
