Monday night’s game included a Tin Man scramble from Tom Brady. He ended the effort with a spikes-out slide.
Watch it. Watch it again. The cleat gets jammed into the ankle of Giants defensive back Xavier McKinney, who committed the cardinal sin of getting in Tommy’s way. (The folks at @NFLUK, the NFL’s official Twitter account for UK fans, joked that the move would draw a red card in the Premier League.)
It’s hard to call it an accident. If it was, then former Ravens safety Ed Reed’s leg “accidentally” got in the way of a Brady’s shoe in January 2013. Brady was fined $10,000 for the maneuver. (This angle makes it look even worse.)
No mention was made during the ESPN broadcast about Brady jamming his cleats into an opponent’s ankle. Given that ESPN currently is in business with Brady’s “documentary” (a/k/a vanity project), anyone from the four-letter network who would dare call him out for a potentially dirty play would risk a torrent of privately-communicated four-letter words from Brady himself.
The technique also wasn’t mentioned during his post-game press conference.
“How much did you enjoy that 10-yard run?” Brady was asked. “Looked pretty nifty on that.”
“Eleven yard run,” Brady said. “They don’t happen very often, so I do remember how far they go. So that was pretty good.” (According to the official NFL game book, it was a 10-yard run.)
He then was asked when he last stepped out of a tackle while making a run.
“It’s been forever, probably never,” Brady said. “Probably never. That’s not my — that’s not what I do. Good to have it come up. Good, hopefully I can do that again next week, too. Make a couple of those.”
If he’d been asked when he last slid in a way that used his footwear as a point of emphasis, his answer may have been a little different.