Tom Brady has won five Super Bowl championships and appeared in eight total Super Bowls during his illustrious 19-year career for the New England Patriots.
The 41-year-old Brady arguably is the greatest signal-caller in the history of the sport, but that reportedly isn’t the feeling around Patriots Place with at least one assistant coach.
Excerpts from ESPN’s Ian O’Connor’s new book, “Belichick: The Making of the Greatest Football Coach of All Time,” were released Wednesday, and one anonymous assistant coach told O’Connor that he doesn’t “think the coaches view Tom as special as everyone else does in football.”
While that’s certainly a ridiculous assertion that will rile up Pats Nation, the claim also didn’t sit well with one Stephen A. Smith. The ESPN commentator joined “Get Up!” on Wednesday and positively lambasted the coach, who Smith deemed a  “punk.”
“The reason why I like the quote is that it highlights the arrogance of coaches,” Smith said. “So many times, players are denigrated for the level of arrogance that they harbor inside themselves, having a bloated view of their exploits, their expertise, their talents, etc. What we’re learning here is that clearly, the coaches are just as bad, if not worse.
“This is Tom Brady we’re talking about,” Smith said. “Four hundred ninety-three career touchdown passes, a three-to-one touchdown-to-interception ratio, 66,000-plus yards passing, eight Super Bowl appearances, five Super Bowl championships. And some ignorant, weak, punk as a coach, who refuses to attach his name to such a thing, sits there and says, ‘well, we think we’ll be fine. We don’t think he’s that great. Anybody can do well in this system.’ Oh, I forgot to bring up one other statistic that’s incredibly important when it comes to Tom Brady: Since 2008 when he got injured in the first game of the season, he has not missed a game, with the exception of the four-game suspension that he has suffered. He has played every single game.
“So excuse me, how would you know that anybody else could produce in your system? Who has the opportunity to do so, other than two games for (Jimmy) Garoppolo and a couple of games for Jacoby Brissett? You have got to be kidding me!”
Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
