I was reading a New York Times piece the other day — “Trump’s Approval Slips Where He Can’t Afford to Lose It: Among Evangelicals” — when I found myself thinking about the Rev. Pat Robertson and quarterback Tom Brady.

This may take some explaining.

For starters, if you know anything about the 2016 election, you know that white evangelicals helped fuel Trump’s success in the GOP primaries. Then, in the general election, white and Latino evangelicals were crucial to his pivotal win in Florida. But the key to his election was winning the votes of Rust Belt (a) Democrats who previously voted for Barack Obama, (b) conservative and older Catholics, (c) angry labor union members/retirees or (d) citizens who were “all of the above.”

Catholic swing voters were much more important to Trump than white evangelicals — in the 2020 general election (as opposed to primaries).

But back to aging NFL quarterbacks and this sad Times political desk feature. Here is a key passage, which is linked — of course — to the bizarre Bible photo episode:

Unnerved by his slipping poll numbers and his failure to take command of the moral and public health crises straining the country, religious conservatives have expressed concern in recent weeks to the White House and the Trump campaign about the president’s political standing.
Their rising discomfort spilled out into the open … when the founder of the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson, scolded the president for taking such a belligerent tone as the country erupted in sorrow and anger over the police killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis.
Speaking on his newscast, “The 700 Club,” the televangelist whose relationship with Mr. Trump dates to the 1990s said, “You just don’t do that, Mr. President,” and added, “We’re one race. And we need to love each other.”

This leads us to some summary material that could have been written by some kind of automated writing program on a blue-zip-code newsroom computer:

I never waste an opportunity to write about sports and religion when there is a natural connection.

That happens all the time. Sports and religion are often intertwined by our culture and society. My trip to Moscow last summer for soccer’s World Cup led me to do a feature on St. Basil’s Cathedral and how it had come to become one of the tournament’s biggest symbols alongside Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

This takes us to this coming Sunday. With America preparing for another Super Bowl — and yet another appearance by quarterback Tom Brady — this great athlete (and his faith) are worth another look.

In Brady’s case, let’s just say it’s complicated.

It’s true that two weeks of Brady storylines since the conference championships didn’t do sportswriters a lot of good. Brady’s been here (nine Super Bowl appearances to be exact) and done that (in the form of five titles). The bigger story was the bad officiating in the NFC Championship Game, how the New Orleans Saints were wronged and the fallout that has ensued.

Super Bowl LIII festivities officially kicked off on Monday with Opening Night — previously known as Media Day — at the State Farm Arena. The media circus that has descended upon Atlanta for Sunday’s big game between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams means hundreds of hours of TV coverage and lots of articles and feature stories.

Lost in all the Brady quotes, news stories and features over the past week was any focus or mention of Brady’s faith. For any athlete who has won so much, religion can often play a central role. Is that the case here?

In a January 2015 piece, Deseret News writer Herb Scribner explored the very question of Brady’s spiritual life, piecing together what was known about his faith from past interviews and feature stories.