Peace in Our Time: Alex Guerrero Flew Air in Kraft One to Carolina

The Herald  – Tom Brady’s body coach Alex Guerrero was on the team plane with the Patriots quarterback yesterday as the team headed here in advance of playing the Carolina Panthers tonight.

This is significant news in that it’s one of the privileges Bill Belichick revoked last season, causing friction between Brady and the head coach.

While Guerrero won’t be on the sidelines during the Panthers game, or any other game this season, he will be allowed to travel with the team during the regular season to tend to his star client and business partner, according to a source.

Guerrero, who also has tight end Rob Gronkowski in the TB12 program and treats other Patriots, including Julian Edelman, has been seen coming and going from the Patriots locker room after their workouts during the week. That’s not a new development, as he’s allowed on the premises, but the dynamics have changed. And, judging by the quarterback’s disposition, for the better.

Brady’s mood in recent days has been very upbeat and positive, perhaps a nod to having Guerrero around.

And so it has come to pass. At long last, there appears to be a negotiated truce in the Pliability War that has caused incalculable loss of lives and treasure.

Once again, the world’s most notorious massage therapist will be allowed on the same plane as the world’s most notable quarterback whose deep tissue he famously rubs. Which I think means it’s safe for us to all come out of our storm cellars and bomb shelters. The war is over. Let’s get back to healing the wounded, clearing the rubble and rebuilding the world. There is work to be done.

So, this is it right? The end of the most overblown story in the history of football, if not of the human race? There is so much mythology built up around the minor issue of Bill Belichick telling Tom Brady’s personal trainer to dial it back some, we’ll never know the full truth. I’d say the whole world lost perspective the minute that Seth Wickersham story landed back in January, but you can’t lose what you never had. They did lose their goddamned minds though.

To me the core of that Wickersham piece wasn’t the utter fallacy of Mr. Kraft forcing Belichick to trade Jimmy Garoppolo, the massively exaggerated reports of “friction,” the flat out lie that Jimmy G was locked out of TB12 Fitness by a threatened and resentful Brady or the laughable suggestion that Belichick is fed up and about to quit. To me it all boiled down to Alex Guerrero overstepping his bounds, so Belichick had to reel him in. That’s it.

Belichick actually put Guerrero on the medical staff as far back as 2014, including giving him Top Secret clearance to players medical records. Until Guerrero started contracting what team doctors were saying, so he was demoted to consultant. By last season he was again overstepping his boundaries, telling players who worked with him not to do what the Pats training staff was recommending and generally just getting in the way. So the guy in charge of the organization that pays $2 million a year treating players said “enough.” He reminded Guerrero what a “consultant” is vs. what a “staff member” is by taking away the plane and sideline privileges he was abusing. Which seems pretty fair and reasonable. No different than taking a kid’s school bus privileges away if he’s not doing what the driver tells him to. No one ever said he couldn’t be around the stadium or work on anyone who wants to hire him. He’s been at Gillette every day like always. And we treated it like Footballmaggedon. Because everybody is insane.

But now we’ve reached an armistice at long last. No one will ever know for sure, but my guess is Brady asked for Guerrero to be taken off the No Fly list because he feels he benefits from his treatment on the road as well as at home.  Belichick had made his point about who is swinging the biggest dick on that plane and those sidelines. So he compromised, with the assurance that Guerrero is going to quit contradicting the team medical staff. Reasonable people coming together to work a solution that benefits everyone. And so the Pliability War is ended and the troops can come home at last.

It’s been completely ridiculous from the start, but it’s over. For now. My only regret, other than the colossal waste of time it’s been, is that this Football Guy never got a say in it.