FOXBORO, Mass. — Tom Brady would like you to believe it’s business as usual for the New England Patriots this week.
That, of course, cannot be the case. The Patriots are facing the Indianapolis Colts for the first time since the Deflategate scandal broke after the AFC Championship Game, so there must be some added motivation this week, right? Not according to Brady.
“I’m always pretty motivated,” the Patriots quarterback said Wednesday. “It’ll be an exciting game. I know they’ve got a good team. They’ve won three straight. They made some changes this offseason, so they’re a very confident team. So it’s going to take a great effort to beat them, so we’ll work hard at practice today, over the next few days, hopefully get us prepared, and then go out and try to beat a good team on the road on Sunday night.”
The Colts sparked the Deflategate controversy when they warned the league prior to last season’s AFC title game that the Patriots might be playing with underinflated footballs. The NFL tested the footballs at halftime, found them underinflated, had no knowledge of the ideal gas law, and then the next eight months of our lives were inundated with talk of deflation.
The NFL suspended Brady four games to begin the 2015 season, then upheld the suspension on appeal, but U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman threw out the ban when the NFL Players Association filed a lawsuit against the league. The Colts prepared for the season thinking Brady would be rusty coming off a five-week break, but that’s now not the case.
Brady is en fuego to begin the 2015 season, completing 72.5 percent of his passes for 1,387 yards with 11 touchdowns and zero interceptions. If anyone is coming into this matchup rusty, it’s Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, who has sat out the last two games with a shoulder injury. He wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire in the three games he played, either, completing just 56 percent of his passes for 753 yards with five touchdowns and seven interceptions.
Backup Matt Hasselbeck fared much better in Luck’s two-game absence, going 48 of 76 for 495 yards with three touchdowns and no picks.
Regardless of who starts for the Colts this week, one would think the Patriots would be extra motivated, but Brady, who cut his news conference short at just over four minutes, stressed that every game counts the same.
“Well, they’re all important, so I think, like I said, you just max out every week,” Brady said. “And every week is a little different. You have different human emotions that you go through. And there are, you know, some days you just don’t feel as good, I don’t know, for one reason or another. There are some game days where I’m like, ‘Man, I feel amazing.’ There are other ones where you’re trying to get yourself feeling at your peak level, so I don’t know.
“I don’t think that’s really been a … how you get to that level where you’re feeling great every week, that’s what you try to do. Like I said, you max out your effort. Coach (Bill Belichick) always talks about all the preparation. The entire week comes down to three hours on Sunday, so it’s how do you ramp yourself up for that three hour window where it all matters, where you’ve got to be at your best. So that’s what we’ll try to do this week.”
Brady did admit he’s “human” Wednesday, however.
Thumbnail photo via David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports Images
