Tom Brady's secret for sustained success: an early bedtime

Plenty of people were writing off Tom Brady earlier this season, ourselves included. He looked lost, overmatched, a man whom the game had passed by.

It's safe to say that Brady, with 18 touchdowns against one interception in his last five games, has quieted any concerns about the end of the road approaching fast. So now we're safe in saying that TOM BRADY WILL PLAY FOREVER. But how? How does this 37-year-old guy continue to play at a level that confounds and overwhelms players more than a decade younger?

"I do go to bed very early, because I’m up very early," he told WEEI, per ESPN.com. "I think that the decisions that I make are always, they always probably center around performance enhancement, if that makes sense. So whether that is what I eat or what decisions I make or whether I drink or don’t drink, it’s always football-centric. I want to be the best I can be every day. I want to be the best I can be every week. I want to be the best I can be for my teammates."

[Join FanDuel.com's $2.5m Week 11 fantasy league: $25 to enter; top 21,840 teams paid]

Peyton Manning holds the unchallenged rep for Football Robot, but to hear Brady talk, he's in that same league in terms of preparation and preservation. "Strength training and conditioning and how I really treat my body," he said, "it’s important to me because there is nothing else I enjoy like playing football."

That's always a fascinating mindset, because while 37 is old for a football player, it's young for real life. What does a guy like Brady do once he's done playing, when football has been the center of his existence for his entire conscious life? We'll find out soon, but apparently not too soon.

____

Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.

Follow @jaybusbee

And keep up with Jay over on Facebook, too.

from Yahoo Sports http://ift.tt/1oGuc2I