Brady fires back

Quarterback Tom Brady seemed to take exception with comments made by San Diego Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer, who questioned whether the Patriots have suffered too many personnel losses.

“You don’t talk about our team,” Brady said. “He has no business talking about our team. He’s not our coach. We’ll let our coach talk about our team. We’ll let our players talk about our team. The only thing we ever do is give respect to the other teams, because that’s what they deserve.”

Brady was asked a follow-up question on the subject.

“You hear what people say and you can use it as a way to motivate you, and I guess sometimes it does motivate you. We’re going to approach it very much the same way. We’ve had a pretty good approach here for a while. We don’t intend to change any time soon. We have a lot of confidence as a team, we have a lot of confidence as players and coaches that we’re doing the right thing. We don’t always play the way we wish we would, as evidenced last weekend. But I think we have a great group of guys that works hard. We’d love to all execute better and that’s why we go out to practice and try to work every day.

“Like I said, it’s really easy in hindsight to look back and say ‘this team, these are all the problems.’ We’re looking for solutions. That’s what we’re all about.”

Brady was asked if he was motivated as a team leader to stand up and defend his team.

“You know what? It depends who is saying it. You have to have some credibility for it to mean anything. You look at the source and realize how credible it is and if the person really knows what they’re talking about. I think someone who is very credible is Coach Belichick. That’s who I listen to. When he tells us something, that’s who I listen to. Pretty much every one other than that, I could really care less about.”

We’ll have more in a bit.

–Mike