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So last year NFL owners voted 31-1 to impose restrictions on Brady鈥檚 access: He could not sit in on production calls with NFL teams, and was not allowed to watch other teams practise. This was both sensible and made Brady鈥檚 day job more difficult. The production call restrictions were loosened this year: Brady can attend production meetings, but not in person.

Still, other teams are suspicious. Maybe it鈥檚 because Brady called a Bears-Cowboys game last week, and the Bears play the Raiders this Sunday; he also called a Washington Commanders game two weeks before the Commanders played the Raiders. Maybe it鈥檚 because Brady sat in the coaches booth at a recent Raiders game against the Los Angeles Chargers, and聽Raiders offensive co-ordinator Chip Kelly told ESPN he talks to Brady two to three times a week. Raiders head coach Pete Carroll said that wasn鈥檛 accurate, and clarified 鈥� uh, that Carroll talks to Brady, and Kelly talks to him regularly. Glad we cleared that up. Great chat, Pete.

It’s not scandalous, but a part-owner of a team who regularly speaks with that team鈥檚 coaching staff probably shouldn鈥檛 also be the lead analyst on a major network, and even NFL owners recognized that. So Brady is disappointed. He wrote a whole about it entitled “Do Your Job” 鈥� that old Bill Belichick mantra 鈥� in the approximate vernacular and cadence of someone trying to sell you a time-share gym membership.

鈥淲e are living through a period of great paranoia and distrust. In politics, media, sports, business, and especially wherever those worlds intersect. There are a thousand reasons why. And none of us know all of them,鈥� Brady wrote.

You said it, Tom. There鈥檚 a real shortage of trust out there, and nobody can point to all the ways people are attacking and delegitimizing institutions, though at least one of them . Anyway, Tom鈥檚 solution is duty and integrity and doing your job with a clear heart, and also, anybody who questions your intentions is telling you they鈥檙e paranoid and pathological.

鈥淲hen you live through uncertain and untrusting times like we are today, it is very easy to watch a person鈥檚 passions and profession intersect, and to believe you鈥檙e looking at some sort of dilemma,鈥� Brady wrote. 鈥淏ecause when you鈥檙e blinded by distrust, it鈥檚 hard to see anything other than self-interest.鈥�

Right. Self-interest.

鈥淧eople who are like that, particularly to a chronic, pathological degree, are telling on themselves,鈥� Brady wrote. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e showing you their world view and how they operate. They鈥檙e admitting that they can only conceive of interests that are selfish; that they cannot imagine a person doing their job for reasons that are greater than themselves. (These kinds of people make horrible teammates, by the way.)

鈥淭he solution to that problem, ironically, is the same for paranoia and distrust. It鈥檚 doing your job with integrity. It鈥檚 finding fulfilment in doing the best you can. It鈥檚 living up to the duty you have to yourself, to your employer, to your family, to the culture, to your fellow citizens. It鈥檚 educating yourself 鈥� It鈥檚 knowing your s—-.鈥�

That last line would probably work better if Brady was better than Greg Olson at his current day job. Anyway, Brady is disappointed if you wouldn鈥檛 trust the motivations of a man whose greatest skill was to be so psychopathically competitive that he was once suspended for, among other things, destroying a cellphone with texts that may have implicated him in the Deflategate scandal, which itself was a competitively psychopathic scandal.

Brady is disappointed if you wouldn鈥檛 trust the judgment of the guy who once said people can avoid getting sunburns by drinking a lot of water, and sold concussion healing juice through his TB12 health and wellness company, co-founded with his trainer Alex Guerrero, who was eventually banned from the Patriots facility.

Brady is disappointed that you don鈥檛 trust the greatest quarterback ever, a man with a messianic streak and a competitive fever whose self-interest is affecting his job, even when the normal rules don鈥檛 seem to apply to him. It鈥檚 disappointing, really. Imagine not presuming good faith; imagine presuming an element of self-interest; imagine not seeing yourself the way others do.

That couldn鈥檛 be Brady, but apparently it can be just about everybody else.