Donaldson: Will 'Tabloid Tom' be as good as before?

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Last week, it was Bridget's people getting their lovely noses out of joint over comments made by Gisele in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair, on the cover of which she poses in the tastefully draped nude and, inside, talks about her feelings toward the love child of her new husband -- the Patriots' handsome hunk of a quarterback, Tom Brady -- and Ms. Moynahan.
This week, it's the more-than-a-bit-bizarre story out of Costa Rica that a pair of paparazzi were fired upon by Bundchen's private security forces after refusing to turn over their unauthorized photos of the latest iteration of the Brady-Bundchen nuptials, previously celebrated quietly in California.
Next week, who knows?
But it's become painfully obvious that, for better or worse (as well as richer or poorer, in sickness and health, 'til the tabloid excesses do us part) this is the world in which Tom Terrific and, by extension, the football team he quarterbacks, now live.
And how thrilled do you think publicity-loving New England coach Bill Belichick will be to have the National Enquirer joining the long list of papers interested in Brady; to have magazines like People and US battling Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine to feature the Pats' QB on the cover?
Because the kind of craziness, foolishness, and nonsense that has reared its ugly head in recent days is most definitely not going to go away.
Brady is Tabloid Tom now, a larger-than-life celebrity in a celebrity-crazed culture, fodder for gossip, hounded by photographers every time he goes out in public in the company of his new bride, who has not become a world-famous model, as well as one of the world's richest women, by keeping a low profile.
They are Beyond-Beautiful People, in every sense of the word, and the common folk clamor for every photo, every bit of news -- better yet, every bit of gossip -- about the Celebrity Super-Couple.
It'll be a Distraction, with a capital "D," in tiny Foxboro, and you know how coach Belichick feels about distractions.
Oh, he and his well-disciplined, media-programmed players can insist they'll only talk about football but, at some level, they're going to have to deal with the media phenomenon that Brady has become.
He was big before but, now that he's married to Bundchen, he's bigger than ever.
More importantly, Brady is going to have to deal with it, and it promises to be a lot more problematic than how he copes with the Buffalo's coverages in the 2009 season opener.
Brady's bride is quoted in Vanity Fair as saying of young John Edward Thomas Moynahan: "I understand that he has a Mom, and I respect that, but to me it's not like because somebody else delivered him, that's not my child. I feel it is, 100 percent."
"It" is? Not "he" is?
That pronoun aside, it seemed as Gisele was saying she thought of John as her own. Which seems like a good thing. Unless you're an FOB -- Friend of Bridget's.
One such "friend" of the Hollywood-based actress was quoted in the New York Post as saying: "If Gisele loved Bridget's child like he was '100 percent her own,' then she would not talk about him in the press. Discretion and respect are not either of Gisele's, or Tom's, virtues, as was evidenced when the child was still unborn and they publicly flaunted their relationship without any discretion whatsoever."
So, does Tom try to tell his world-famous wife to keep her mouth shut about his kid? Will things be a bit "strained," the next time Tom arrives at Chez Moynahan to pick up young John?
And what about the supposed shoot-em-up scene in Costa Rica? Whether it happened or not, it's out there, and it's something else that, at some level, Brady will have to deal with; something else that will distract him from the task at hand, which is rehabbing his surgically-repaired knee and getting the Patriots back into the playoffs.
Brady has always been a great competitor, tireless in his preparation -- both physical and mental, and a "team-first" kind of guy.
Yet he has spent much of this offseason jet-setting with Gisele to places like Paris and L.A., Manhattan and Malibu, Costa Rica and Brazil, living La Dolce Vita, rather than working out extensively in Foxboro.
Some Patriots fans reacted bitterly to a column I wrote last month questioning whether Brady was as dedicated to football and the Patriots as he's always been.
How could anyone question their fabulous Tom, he of the three career Super Bowl title rings to go along with the record 50 TD passes in 2007?
We don't really know how hard Brady, who'll be 32 in August, has worked to rehabilitate his injured knee and prepare for the coming season. We do know he's been flying around the globe with the gorgeous Gisele.
The challenge now for Brady is to do what Tiger Woods has done -- keep his personal life private while remaining the premier player in his sport.
But that's not so easy when your wife is a world-renowned supermodel who says what's on her mind.
It is what it is, as Belichick likes to say?
It's going to be interesting to see how Brady handles it all. Because, rest assured, there are going to be more instances of what's happened the last two weeks.

(Contact Jim Donaldson at jdonalds@projo.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit The Providence Journal