Tom Brady did his best Bill Belichick impersonation following the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20-19 loss to the Chicago Bears on “Thursday Night Football.”
It came as the Buccaneers quarterback deflected from answering a reporter’s question during his postgame media availability Thursday.
Brady, the longtime New England Patriot, was asked if he did, in fact, know what down it was on the team’s final offensive play. The question was prompted due to Brady’s on-field, non-verbal cues following the incompletion.
When his fourth down pass to tight end Cameron Brate fell incomplete, Brady motioned something with four fingers up, and talked to the referee on the field, almost as if he didn’t know the Tampa Bay possession was over. It prompted quite the firestorm on Twitter.
Well, after the game, a reporter questioned the play — fourth-and-six from the Tampa 41 yard line with 33 seconds left — and flat out asked if Brady had known it was fourth down.
“Yeah, I knew we needed a chunk, and I was thinking about more yardage and, you know, it was just bad execution,” Brady responded, dancing around the question, via a team-provided transcript. “We had a great opportunity there. Just didn’t execute when we needed to.”
Head coach Bruce Arians was asked about the play as well, and responded: “Yeah, he knew. He knew.”
We may have to agree to disagree with you there, Bruce.
