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Motivation Quote by Tom Brady

"WIth football you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren't playing so well, you don't have to turn those two game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks"

About this Quote

Brady is selling a truth that sounds almost boring until you remember how the NFL actually works: football isn’t a sport of five stars and a supporting cast, it’s a weekly stress test of organizational depth. The “up to 28 guys you consider starters” line is a quiet rebuke to the glamour mythology of the quarterback-as-savior. He’s reframing “starter” as a role you earn situationally, not a title printed on the depth chart. In Brady-speak, that’s culture: a roster built to survive randomness.

The subtext is about fragility. A season isn’t usually wrecked by one catastrophic flaw; it’s death by small failures compounding - a guard plays hurt, a corner loses confidence, special teams gives up hidden yards, the offense presses, the locker room gets jittery. Brady’s point about “two game losing streaks” turning into “six-game losing streaks” is basically risk management. You don’t prevent adversity; you prevent it from metastasizing.

Context matters: Brady’s career was built in systems that treated continuity and redundancy as competitive weapons. New England’s plug-and-play lineups, Tampa’s veteran depth, the relentless emphasis on “do your job” - all of it feeds this worldview. He’s also nudging accountability away from vibes and toward structure: if your team collapses when one unit slumps, that’s not bad luck, that’s bad design.

It’s a quarterback talking like a general manager, which is exactly the point. Winning isn’t just execution; it’s insulation.

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TopicTeamwork
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Brady, Tom. (2026, January 16). WIth football you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren't playing so well, you don't have to turn those two game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/with-football-you-can-have-up-to-28-guys-you-121490/

Chicago Style
Brady, Tom. "WIth football you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren't playing so well, you don't have to turn those two game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/with-football-you-can-have-up-to-28-guys-you-121490/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"WIth football you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren't playing so well, you don't have to turn those two game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/with-football-you-can-have-up-to-28-guys-you-121490/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Tom Brady

Tom Brady (born August 3, 1977) is a Athlete from USA.

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