Good-bye Tedy Bruschi

After 13 seasons in the NFL, Tedy Bruschi has retired.

Thirteen years, five Super Bowls, and one stroke. Thirteen years gets you about 13 years off your life. It took five Super Bowls to win three of them. And one stroke just meant a return to the pinnacle of your sport for the ages.

Add it all up and it makes Tedy Bruschi one of the mannest men in the history of sports. That’s right, mannest, not manly, manlier, manliest. That’s too “metrosexual,” which is too close to asexual. See, Tedy Bruschi wasn’t that big, but he seemed to always make the biggest hits in the biggest games. He wasn’t that fast, but he seemed to always be in the right place whenever to knock a pass down when a tight end or running back hoped to make the big catch. And Bruschi wasn’t that strong, but he could be found stoning offensive linemen, then stoning running backs who saw a ghost of a hole only to see the blur of the number 54 driving through their chests.

For a linebacker with no one attribute as a calling card, Tedy Bruschi sure did have a helluva an NFL career. After being drafted by the New England Patriots in the third round out of the University of Arizona in 1996 Bruschi was a pass rush and special teams specialist, a bit player evolving into a valued starter over a three year period. Then from the 1999-2000 season through the 2o07-2008 season he was the centerpiece of Bill Belichek’s, most difficult to learn and discern, 3-4 defense. But at the end of the 2006-2007 season Patriots head coach Bill Belichek assessed his team and realized his linebackers were becoming long in the tooth and he drafted Jerod Mayo of Tennessee with the Patriots usual late first round pick. Mayo only became last season’s defensive rookie of the year and in the process began to supplant Bruschi as the team’s inside linebacker heartbeat. 

For Bruschi, his 75 tackles in 2008-2009 were his second fewest in six seasons. He had no sacks for the first time in his 13 seasons and sat out the final three games of the season with a knee injury.

And during this preseason, Bruschi not only saw the light at the end of the tunnel, he knew he was becoming the light and was at the end of the tunnel. Belicheck explained:

“Obviously, he’s a very experienced player and knowing what to do and all of that isn’t a huge issue” after missing many training camp practices, coach Bill Belichick said after that game. “But timing and recognition and reaction times and all of that, that’s something that you can’t train for. You’ve got to be out there and experience it on the field with your teammates.”

Bruschi had this to say about how he views aging in the NFL and his post-career plans:

“After you get past 10 [NFL seasons], I think that’s the way you have to do it because you never know what’s going to happen within a year. You just don’t,” he said June 30 during a football clinic he ran for 67 youngsters at Gillette Stadium. “So when the season’s over, you sort of reassess things and that’s how it’s going to go again.”

“I know I can coach,” he said then. “I know the game. I’ve been in it so long, it’s just going to be a matter of what I do when I’m done [playing]. So I don’t know. It’s a passion of mine. I love football. I know I want to be in it. Let’s just see what I’ll be doing.”

On February 6, 2005, Bruschi started in the Patriots third super Bowl win against the Philadelphia Eagles. One week later he was in Hawaii for his only Pro Bowl appearance. Three days later he experienced numbness in his left arm and leg and suffered from blurry vision. While being diagnosed with a stroke he was found to have a hole in his heart.

Tedy Bruschi not only recovered from the stroke and the surgery to repair his heart, he started in nine of the last 10 games in the 2005-2006 season and was named the Associated Press Comeback Player of the Year.

For his career, Bruschi played in 189 regular-season games, had 1,134 tackles, 30½ sacks and 12 interceptions, of which four he returned for touchdowns. But he will be always and most remembered for successfully returning to the NFL, sports’ most violent endeavor, after a stroke and heart surgery.

When it comes to professional football, Tedy Bruschi was a man among men – the Mannest of men.