Pats pack baggage, Falcons air laundry
HOUSTON Put all the crap in your life in a drawer and slam it shut. It’s Super Bowl week!
That’s the message New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has told his players, according to quarterback Tom Brady.
At a rousing sendoff rally on Monday in Foxborough, Mass., Brady professed to liking Belichick’s advice so much he passed it along to the adoring throng.
“Like coach tells everybody, put all that crap that you’ve got to deal with in a drawer. Put it all away for one more week, because we need you guys at your best, because we need to be at our best,” Brady said.
The Patriots’ foe in Super Bowl LI on Sunday, the NFC champion Atlanta Falcons, arrived in Houston a day earlier. The Falcons held a walk-through practice on Monday at Rice University amid sunshine and 26 C warmth.
On Monday night, the teams were scheduled to make a Super Bowl team’s biggest sacrifice, making themselves available for an hour to thousands of reporters and cameramen from around the world for media day.
But the Falcons were already making plenty of news earlier in the day. In an nfl.com report by Michael Silver posted late Monday afternoon, Atlanta running back Devonta Freeman and his agent Kristin Campbell let it be known Freeman won’t be happy if he has to earn his slated US$800,000 salary in 2017, the last year of his fouryear rookie deal.
“It’s time for the Falcons to pay him like the elite back he is,” Campbell told nfl.com. “I expect them to make him a priority this off-season, as he’s been an integral part of the dynamic offence that has got them to the Super Bowl.”
For his part, Freeman told Silver that sharing carries with 2015 draft pick Tevin Coleman has been a frustration.
“Oh, I’m certainly struggling with it, just because I’m a competitor,” Freeman said. “Now we’re in the Super Bowl, and this is a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity. I don’t know how many carries or touches I’m gonna get going into this game, but I’m gonna try to make the most of every opportunity I get.”