Thursday morning’s social-media barrage from Antonio Brown included a bizarre claim that Tom Brady and Alex Guerrero lured Brown to the Buccaneers so that they could charge him exorbitant amounts for TB12 services. Although Brown later tried to backtrack, he said what he said -- and it resonated throughout the NFL all day long.
Coincidentally on Thursday, Brady had his weekly press conference. He was asked to describe his feelings regarding his now-former teammate. Not surprisingly, Brady said not much.
“I think there’s a lot of personal feelings, obviously,” Brady said. “I don’t think this is really the week to discuss it though. I’m just going to do the best I can do as the quarterback of the team, try to put together a great week and finish strong. You just always deal with different things over the course of the season and that’s what we’re doing this week.”
Brady also was asked if he’s aware of possible teammate injuries during games (he said he’s focused on his own job). Likewise, he was asked whether he knows who is being targeted with passes, since the team is pushing the idea that Brown’s blowup traces to unhappiness over not getting the ball.
“I think you’d always like to target -- you want to get everyone involved, obviously,” Brady said. “I think the receiver position there is always -- they’re a long way from the football, when you stand out there. As a quarterback, you honestly do the best you can do. You try to read the coverage, try to find the open guy and realize that guys are going to be open and unfortunately don’t get it sometimes and other times you make bad reads, and you make bad throws. Just part of playing football and playing quarterback.”
Based on the transcript circulated by the team, Brady wasn’t asked about the shot that Brown fired as to Guerrero and Brady’s side hustle. Chances are, if asked, that Brady would have found a way to string together words that ultimately said not much of anything.