Piss Missile Wins
There are only a handful of things in life I can confidently say I know really fucking well.
Medicine.
Gardening.
Politics.
And Tom fucking Brady.
That is a bizarre résumé, but here we are.
I’ve been a Brady fan for more than 15 years. I watched the Patriots years. The Super Bowls. The impossible comebacks. The Tampa years. The retirement. The un-retirement. The actual retirement. The divorce from football that lasted approximately as long as some celebrity marriages.
So when Tom Brady was calling the Cowboys game and Dak Prescott launched an absolute fucking rocket downfield and Brady casually described it as an “absolute piss missile,” I nearly died.
Not because I was offended.
Because it was fucking perfect.
And apparently half the internet reacted like Tom Brady had ripped off his headset, shotgunned a Natty Light and started announcing the game from the parking lot.
“DID TOM BRADY JUST SAY PISS MISSILE?!”
Yes.
Yes, he fucking did.
And it was glorious.
Within minutes, clips were everywhere. People were shocked. People were laughing. People were debating whether an NFL broadcaster should say “piss missile” on television.
Meanwhile I’m sitting there thinking:
Have none of you ever actually listened to Tom Brady?
Because underneath the carefully constructed image of the handsome, seven-time Super Bowl champion, avocado-ice-cream-eating, TB12, perfectly moisturized football cyborg has always been a dude.
A very competitive, occasionally ridiculous, shit-talking dude.
That’s part of why the moment worked.
If some broadcaster had obviously walked into the booth thinking, Tonight I’m going viral, and spent four quarters desperately trying to manufacture a catchphrase, I would have wanted to crawl inside my television and unplug him.
Brady didn’t deliver it like a catchphrase.
Prescott threw a fucking missile.
Brady saw a fucking missile.
And apparently the football dictionary stored somewhere inside Tom Brady’s brain returned:
PISS MISSILE.
Case closed.
And suddenly the internet discovered Tom Brady has a personality.
Welcome. Some of us have been here awhile.
But the reaction says something bigger about where we are culturally.
We have sanitized the absolute shit out of public personalities.
Athletes get media training.
Politicians get consultants.
Celebrities get publicists.
Corporations have social-media teams pretending Wendy’s has a personality.
Everyone is coached. Focus-grouped. Scripted. Edited. Captioned. Approved. Apologized for. Clarified.
Then a human being accidentally acts like a human being for four seconds and the internet loses its fucking mind.
Maybe that’s why authenticity hits so differently now.
We don’t see enough of it.
Everything online is becoming increasingly manufactured, including the things specifically designed to convince you they’re spontaneous.
People rehearse their “candid” TikToks.
Influencers film themselves waking up after they’ve already done their hair.
Politicians suddenly discover extremely relatable hobbies six weeks before an election.
People spend twenty minutes positioning a camera so they can record themselves “randomly” having an emotional moment.
Then Tom Brady says piss missile during a football game and somehow THAT feels like somebody opened a window.
There you are.
A person.
Not a brand.
And maybe I’m particularly sensitive to that because I make content.
The fastest way for me to stop enjoying somebody online is when I can feel them performing their personality.
You can fucking tell.
People can tell when you actually know something, too.
That’s another thing the internet has completely fucked up.
Everybody is an expert now.
Read three tweets? Expert.
Watched a 46-second TikTok? Expert.
Saw an infographic somebody made in Canva? Congratulations, apparently you’re now qualified to explain medicine, constitutional law, horticulture and NFL quarterback mechanics before lunch.
Meanwhile, actual knowledge is usually much less dramatic.
It’s years of paying attention.
Years of experience.
Years of noticing tiny things other people don’t notice because you actually give a shit about the subject.
That’s why I can look at a plant and immediately start mentally running through drainage, pests, fungal disease, soil conditions and whether somebody did something fucking stupid with the roots.
It’s why 27 years in nursing permanently rewired the way I look at medical information.
It’s why I can spend an absurd amount of time digging through political documents because I want to know what somebody actually said instead of what a screenshot claims they said.
And it’s why I can hear Tom Brady say “piss missile” and immediately understand why the entire thing is so fucking funny.
I know the source material.
I have put in my Brady hours.
Probably an unhealthy number of Brady hours.
And after 15-plus years, I have earned the right to say this with absolute authority:
Let the man say piss missile.
Actually, encourage it.
Football commentary doesn’t need another perfectly polished sentence explaining that a quarterback “showed excellent velocity while attacking the secondary.”
We have eyes.
That motherfucker launched a piss missile.
Sometimes language evolves because Shakespeare invents a word.
Sometimes humanity advances because Tom Brady watches Dak Prescott throw a football and thinks:
Yep.
Piss missile.
And frankly?
I know which contribution I’m enjoying more.
Seven Super Bowls.
Twenty-three NFL seasons.
Countless records.
One piss missile.
And somehow the piss missile wins.