As DeflateGate rages on, dwarfing the Super Bowl and forcing everyone to choose a side, we’ve all lost sight of the real victim.
The New England Patriots quarterback got real earlier today, talking about the toll all this talk about deflated balls has had on his fragile psyche.
“I personalized a lot of things and thought this was all about me and my feelings got hurt, and then I moved past it because it’s not serving me,” Brady said Monday morning during his weekly appearance on sports radio WEEI’s “Dennis & Callahan” program.
“I think what’s serving me is to try to prepare for the game ahead, and 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, and honestly I’m not interested in trying to find out right now because we have the biggest game of our season ahead.”
During an interview with ESPN’s Chris Berman during halftime of last night’s superwatchable Pro Bowl, Brady said the NFL still hasn’t contacted him in connection with their investigation. So you can trust that they are taking the whole thing seriously.
The looming story has been a giant distraction for the Patriots, no matter what Brady tries to say. Surely Bill Belichick has more important football-related things to do than quote My Cousin Vinny at a bizarre press conference.
But if you think all of this isn’t just making Brady’s life even better, you’re sorely mistaken. Dude’s going to come out of this even more commercially viable.
“Everybody is entitled to their opinion,” Brady said on WEEI, when asked if he’s learned this week about who his friends truly are. “Everyone will say, ‘God, it’s been a tough week for you.’ But 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. I think that’s been the best thing to come out of this week.
Aww. Good to hear Tommy Touchdown still has friends after all this. Was pretty worried.
[H/T: ESPN]