Every football player has their own quirks and traditions.
For Tom Brady, it involves a very unique approach to keep footballs as dry as possible on humid days. The New England Patriots will play their first road game against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday and they’ll contend with 90 degrees weather and roughly 70 percent humidity.
How does he make sure to cleanly snap the ball from under center without it slipping?
Its simple — he puts a towel down his center’s backside. The Athletic’s Nick Underhill wrote an intriguing piece on this tradition, and learned that Patriots’ centers try do everything possible to stay dry.
“I always tell them I don’t want to throw a wet ball on a perfectly sunny day,” Brady said.
David Andrews has been Brady’s starting center for the past four seasons and he’s went to extreme measures to accommodate Brady.
“I have actually tried to train my body not to sweat,” Andrews said. “So, I would sit in the sauna and just try not to (sweat). It didn’t work.
“It was something that was very different for me at first, especially when he grabs you as a rookie in training camp and throws a towel down your butt,” Andrews continued. “Pulling your shorts back, dumping baby powder down your butt. But that’s part of it, and obviously, if it affects how he operates, you want to be as good as you can about it.”
Brady narrows in all the most intricate details in order to be successful, and this is just one detail that happens to be hilarious, but affective.
