Bill Belichick Is Preparing a Birthday Surprise For Tom Brady

New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady is turning 41 on Friday, and coach Bill Belichick was asked during his press briefing prior to tonight’s practice in front of season ticket holders and Foxboro residents if he has something planned for the G.O.A.T.

After all, while their relationship has shifted over time, they’ve been together in New England for 19 years.

The Patriot’s coach seemed amused by the question and smiled before saying: “I still have a couple days to work that . . . we’ll come up with something.”

Belichick and Brady have combined to make the Patriots the NFL’s best team this century.

Brady’s absence from voluntary offseason workouts brought up some questions, some of them were addressed to Belichick.

“It’s a voluntary program,” coach Bill said. “You’ll have to ask him about that.”

So why did Brady, who had been a regular participant in voluntary workouts prior to this offseason, decide to stay away until this week? The most probable answer is something as simple as Brady wanting to spend more time with his family.

“I have a wife [Gisele Bundchen] that aspires to be a lot of things, and she travels a lot. My oldest son lives here in New York, three kids, and you’re just always trying to juggle and you want to be there for them, and you want to be there for the hockey games and the soccer games,” Brady said in March. “But you also realize the level of commitment it takes to give as much as you can to the team that needs you.”

“It’s a big commitment,” Brady said during a Facebook documentary that aired earlier this year. “I’m sitting here, laying here three days after the year getting my Achilles worked on, my thumb. And you go, ‘What are we doing this for? Who are we doing this for? Why are we doing this?’ You’ve got to have answers to those questions and they’ve got to be with a lot of conviction. When you lose your conviction, you should probably be doing something else.”