I went into Tom Brady’s GQ Man of the Year cover profile thinking it was going to be just another piece of BS frat-bro hagiography. Some people are ride-or-die for Brady, I get that. And if the Patriots are your team, God bless. But over the past year, I’ve become convinced that Brady is a liar, a cheater, and that he is not very bright at all. There’s something deceptive about him, something very shady. And what’s incredible is that GQ’s Chuck Klosterman basically says yes, Brady is a great QB, perhaps one of the greatest of all time, but that he’s a shady bastard too.

When celebrities/athletes agree to these kinds of profiles – especially a MOTY profile – they’re expected to do a no-holds-barred sit-down interview. That’s what Klosterman was promised. Instead, Brady’s people said at the last minute that it would have to be an hour-long phone interview. Then when Brady called, he only had 45 minutes. Then when Klosterman got to the Deflategate stuff, Brady hedged, deflected, lied and cut off the conversation. He even flat-out denied knowledge that he was going to be ASKED about Deflategate. Because he’s so classy and honest, right? Such a professional. You can read the full GQ piece here, which I would suggest because I love how Klosterman really pressed him to answer some very basic questions and Brady just… couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Some highlights:

Brady doesn’t want to be a politician: “There is 0.000 chance of me ever wanting to do that. I just think that no matter what you’d say or what you’d do, you’d be in a position where you know, you’re politicking. You know? Like, I think the great part about what I do is that there’s a scoreboard. At the end of every week, you know how you did. You know how well you prepared. You know whether you executed your game plan. There’s a tangible score. I think in politics, half the people are gonna like you and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say… It’s like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They’re all opinions.”

Whether he was “generally aware” that balls were being deflated: “I don’t really wanna talk about stuff like this. There are several reasons why. One is that it’s still ongoing. So I really don’t have much to say, because it’s—there’s still an appeal going on.”

When pressed about the issue: “I’ve had those questions for eight months and I’ve answered them, you know, multiple times for many different people, so—

Again, was he generally aware? “I’m not talking about that, because there’s still ongoing litigation. It has nothing to do with the personal question that you’re trying to ask, or the answer you’re trying to get. I’m not talking about anything as it relates to what’s happened over the last eight months. I’ve dealt with those questions for eight months. It’s something that—obviously I wish that we were talking about something different. But like I said, it’s still going on right now. And there’s nothing more that I really want to add to the subject. It’s been debated and talked about, especially in Boston, for a long time.

Whether he thinks Deflategate changed the way the Patriots are perceived: “I don’t really care how the Patriots are perceived, truthfully. I really don’t. I really don’t. Look, if you’re a fan of our team, you root for us, you believe in our team, and you believe in what we’re trying to accomplish. If you’re not a fan of us, you have a different opinion.”

When pressed again about his “general awareness” of deflated balls: “I’ve already answered all those questions. I don’t want to keep revisiting what’s happened over the last eight months. Whether it’s you, whether it’s my parents, whether it’s anybody else. If that’s what you want to talk about, then it’s going to be a very short interview.

[From GQ]

Soon after that last response, the interview comes to a close. If you read the full piece, you get the whole experience of Klosterman really pressing Brady on that single question: did Brady have “general awareness” of footballs being deflated? And if Brady had answered that question publicly (or in court) before as he claimed, why would it have been so difficult to say “I addressed it there, but I’ll say it again. No, I did not have general awareness”? It’s a fascinating glimpse of how ill-prepared Brady was for a telephone interview by a less-than-fan-girly journalist.

Notice Brady did have the time to do a full-on GQ photoshoot with Inez & Vinoodh though.

Photos courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh/GQ.