TOM A REAL HEAD CASE
After Broncos’ horse play, they’ll get Brady beatdown
It’s bear-poking season in the NFL, where the eter nally stupid are ripe to be embarrassed in front of a national audience. Tom Brady has dealt with varying degrees of verbal nonsense from the opposition during his 16-year career. From laug hable g ua r a ntee s from scrubs (Anthony Smith) to profane outbursts from Pro Bowlers (Antonio Cromartie) to noso-subtle cheating allegations from former teammates (Darrelle Revis), the greatest quarterback that’s ever lived doesn’t take kindly to loudmouths.
Broncos defensive linemen Antonio Smith and Malik Jackson’s suggestions this week that Brady perpetually cries to officials represented the latest dumb move by players about to face the pretty-boy assassin.
Brady is the latter-day Bill Bixby: Don’t make him angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.
“He’s not a whiner,” Patriots wide receiver Brandon LaFell said on Wednesday. “He’s a winner.”
Brady doesn’t have a perfect record in the face of all the hate — the Jets, after all, beat the Patriots i n the 2010 divisional playoffs, five days after Cromartie called him an a----- — but he typically has the last laugh.
The loose-lipped Broncos tossed Rob Gronkowski into smack-talking ring this week too. He pushes off, they whined. Hit him low, they opined.
“We’re focused on the Denver Broncos and the game,” Bill Belichick said Wednesday. “All the rest of it’s a bunch of hot air.”
The sheer idiocy of Denver’s verbal assault is unfathomable.
Brady is already perturbed by Roger Goodell’s contention that he was mixed up i n the football air-pressure high jinks that attacked his reputation. This season has been one giant F.U. tour for the four-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback.
Now, the Broncos want to further antagonize him? Seriously, are these guys complete and utter morons? Have they lost their minds?
One day after Smith agreed with a reporter’s assessment that Brady is a “crybaby,” Jackson claimed that the two-time NFL MVP is “definitely one of those whiners that whines.”
Dumb and Dumber.
They’ll feel Brady’s wrath in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday in Denver.
“We preach to ou r team throughout the course of the season consistently — not just now — the importance of staying focused on your job and what you have to do,” Broncos coach Gar y Kubiak said about his players’ trash talk this week. “I think our guys have done a good job with that. I think they’ve stayed focus on what our team needs to do to be successful ... and this week’s no different.”
Earth to Kubiak: Wake up. You r player s u sed ter r ible judgment.
Brady doesn’t forget. He will make those chatty fools pay like he has done in the past.
When Anthony Smith, an unsuspecting second-year safety for the Steelers, foolishly guaranteed a win over the Patriots — who were 12-0 — before Week 14 of the 2007 season, Brady inflicted hurt on the poor sap. He picked on Smith — and embarrassed him on two of his four touchdown passes — in a 31-13 rout over Pittsburgh.
W hen Rev is ig nora nt ly intimated last offseason that Brady was aware of Belichick’s Spygate shenanigans, the Patriots signal caller rallied his team past the Jets in Week 7 before giving the Pro Bowl cornerback a wet-fish, drive-by “handshake.”
The lesson should have been clear to everyone: Don’t poke this bear. You’ll regret it.
Some Broncos evidently didn’t get the message.
Brady predictably didn’t fan the flames when asked Wednesday about whining to the refs. (He does. They all do.)
“I’m not sure,” Brady said. “I’m not sure what the other quarterbacks do. If the refs want to throw the flag, I love when they throw flags on the defenders, absolutely. It advances our team, so that’s just part of football.”
The quarterback also had selective amnesia about the specifics of those conversations with the officials.
“I don’t remember much from them,” he said. “I’ve taken a lot of hits over the years.”
He also claimed not to have seen Wednesday’ s“CRYBRAD Y” Daily News back page of a diapered image of himself.
Brady’s brain has had as much to do with his success through the years as anything else. He’s one of the smartest players in the history of the sport. He also thinks before he speaks.
His opponents this week exercised highly questionable judg ment by opening their mouths when they j ust should have shut up.
Getting the best quarterback in the history of the world unnecessarily angry?
Stupid doesn’t even begin to describe it.