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Tom Brady on D&C regarding Deflategate: ‘My feelings got hurt. Then I moved past it, because it’s not serving me’
By Jerry Spar on January 26, 2015 at 8:00 am ET
Tom Brady
Tom Brady
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, making his weekly appearance on WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan show, acknowledged that his “feelings got hurt” during last week’s attacks on his integrity and again issued a staunch denial of any role in Deflategate. To hear the interview, go to the Dennis & Callahan audio on demand page.
Brady insisted he has never told an equipment manager or ball boy to deflate a football after it was inspected by a game official, and that includes last Sunday’s AFC championship game against the Colts, when the Patriots’ offensive footballs were found to have been deflated more than the league rules allow.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “Look, I don’t want to keep getting into this. No, I didn’t and I haven’t and I never will. That’s obviously how I feel and the kind of person that I am.
“No one knows the facts. I picked 24 balls, that’s what I picked. Whatever happened after I did it and whatever the situation was where they measured them, I have no idea [about] any of those facts. I try to stay really humble and deal with the facts that I know. When you don’t know something, all I can say is I don’t know. I know that’s not always the answer that people want to hear, but that’s the reality.”
Asked if he had any idea why the balls were at the improper PSI, Brady offered no explanation.
“It’s all speculation,” Brady said. “I’ve tried to wrap my head around it, too. I’ve done that and I’m trying to move past that, because I continue to try to rehash things. I personalized a lot of things and thought this was all about me, and my feelings got hurt. Then I moved past it, because it’s not serving me. What’s serving me is try to prepare for the game ahead. I’ll deal with whatever happens later. I’ll have my opportunity to try to figure out what happened and figure out a theory like everyone else is trying to do. But this isn’t the time for that. Honestly, I’m not interested in trying to find out right now, because we have the biggest game of our season ahead.”
Brady said he’s turned a negative situation into a positive one by ignoring the critics and focusing on those who support him.
“Everybody’s entitled to their opinion,” he said. “Everyone will say, ‘God, it’s been a tough week for you.’ It’s been a great week for me. It’s been a great week for me to really be able to recalibrate the things that are important in my life and understand the people that support me and love me and care about me. That’s been the best thing to come out about this week.
“Like I said, it’s all part of the business. You deal with ups and downs, the good and the bad. I’m excited to play in the Super Bowl for the sixth time. It’s a pretty amazing accomplishment for our team based on where we started. That’s where I’m at. I’m at a great place. We’ve had a great week of practice. We’re going to go down and try to finish strong.”
Brady said he plans to focus 100 percent on Sunday’s game going forward, despite the fact that he’ll undoubtedly continue to get bombarded with questions about it after the team arrives in Arizona late Monday.
“I’ve said everything I can on the matter to this point,” he said. “I think it just is a lot of wasted energy for me to talk about it more and more and more. The more energy I have for this game coming up, the better I’ll be. I don’t plan on talking about it at all. I want to go out there and I want to play the best game I can possibly play. This team makes it hard on you to do that because they’ve got one of the best defenses in the NFL, certainly one of the best over the last three years.
“It’s really about this week and ignoring what anyone may say or think or do or feel. Everyone has had an opinion to this point. Everyone can speculate all they want on what happened. That’s their right, that’s their opinion. Part of playing professional sports is dealing with the good and the bad. Coach has taught us for a long time to ignore the noise and focus on what we control. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Brady continues to count coach Bill Belichick among his confidantes, despite speculation that the coach sold out his quarterback in his Thursday press conference.
“I’ve never once felt that we’re not on the same page,” Brady said. “He’s a great coach. He’s the only coach I’ve ever played for; he’s the only coach I’d ever want to play for. There’s a lot of people over the years that have criticized him, but I’d say there’s not one player who’s every played for him who’s not had an unbelievable amount of respect for him and how he prepares and his diligence and his preparation.
“We always see things eye to eye. We both want to win. That’s what it’s always about for us, and I think that’s why we get along so well. There’s nothing that surprises me with him. When he puts his mind to something there’s nobody better at figuring it out.”
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