Patriots quarterback Tom Brady opened up about some of his thoughts on former teammate Aaron Hernandez today, but he wouldn’t say whether they have spoken since the news broke that Hernandez is a murder suspect.
Surrounded by a crowd of reporters at training camp, Brady was asked if Hernandez reached out to him in any way, or if he has tried to reach out to Hernandez. Brady replied that team spokesman Stacey James had told him not to get into anything like that.
“Stacey told me I can’t comment on any of that,” Brady said. “Stacey told me — it’s a good question, but I’m not supposed to comment on any of those things. . . . I’m really not supposed to comment on Aaron.”
Brady did, however, speak about Hernandez in general terms, and about his own reaction to learning that Hernandez would be charged with first-degree murder.
“I think everyone had a certain range of emotions, whatever they might have been. But those were very personal, and I dealt with them,” he said. “Certainly it’s a very tragic thing that happened, someone loses their life. But all those things were out of the players’ control here and we’re not really part of that situation so I don’t think it does a lot for us to get too much involved.”
Brady mostly reiterated what he previously said about wanting to move on: Brady said the whole team needs to avoid distractions.
“The fate of our season is going to be determined by the guys in the locker room and hopefully nothing else,” he said. “You talk about the Patriot Way, and to me that means mental toughness, it means dealing with different situations and adversities over the course of a season and offseason and how you can put those things behind you and focus on your job.”
Losing Hernandez will make Brady’s job harder, but he sounds eager to get his job started.
