Tom Brady doesn’t mind shrugging off the negative commentary, especially knowing he will soon channel his inner Cris Collinsworth.
The Buccaneers quarterback, who will slide into the Fox Sports booth as their lead NFL analyst upon his retirement, was asked Monday about the criticism he received from Collinsworth on “Sunday Night Football,” when the commentator likened one of Brady’s incomplete passes to LeBron James. missing a layup.
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Although Brady expressed it’s simply an “opinion,” he recognized the time is coming for him to dish it out on-air.
“I’m gonna get a chance to cover some games here shortly, at some point,” Brady said on the latest installment of his SiriusXM podcast, “Let’s Go!”
“So maybe I get a chance to fire back at everyone else. That’s natural for a commentator to have his opinion. Whether you agree with it or not, that’s just an opinion.”
In the second quarter of Sunday’s game between the Buccaneers and Cardinals, Brady threw a short incomplete pass to wide receiver Russell Gage.
The inaccurate throw stunned Collinsworth in the booth.
“I got nothing,” Collinsworth said.
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“I mean, this is a layup. This is like watching LeBron James miss a layup right here … I don’t know what I’m watching.”
The Buccaneers defeated the Cardinals in overtime on Christmas Day, 19-16.
Brady told co-host Jim Gray one day after the win, he’s learned to navigate situations involving critical or even inaccurate accounts by brushing it off.
“You can take two approaches, you can let things bother you, every one of them, or you could just let it roll off your back, and that’s kind of how I’ve chosen to do it. Everyone’s got a different way of dealing with it based on their personality, Look, whatever is said or written, you know, most people don’t have all the information and there’s some bias with that,” Brady said.
“I do believe it’s much harder on people who have no control,” the seven-time Super Bowl champion continued, referring to his loved ones.
“Often people, they take everything as if it’s exactly the right way or exactly the word. A lot of people, they’re just trying to fill the airwaves, fill time, and fill space, and not that they have a credible opinion, it might not be credible to me, but for them it’s credible and you respect the things that are positive, you respect the things that are negative, you may not agree with them, but that’s just part of this job.”
Brady, who is currently in his 23rd season in the league following a brief 40-day retirement, agreed to a monster 10-year, $AUD553 million deal with Fox Sports in the spring that is scheduled to begin when he retires for good.
This story originally appeared on the New York Post and has been reposted with permission
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