Tom Brady talked about trick plays, Mike Vrabel, and the fastest Patriot on WEEI
"It's all kind of taking advantage of that over pursuit."
During his weekly radio interview on WEEI’s “Kirk & Callahan,” Tom Brady gave some background on what the Patriots have to see before offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels calls for a trick play.
“It’s good to be an aggressive defense, but also if you get too aggressive,” Brady said, “that’s when offenses take advantage.”
That’s exactly what the Patriots did in their 31-17 win over the Packers on Sunday night. Multiple trick plays helped Brady and New England move the ball at critical moments.
Asked if he was concerned about showing too many of the trick plays during the regular season, Brady had an interesting response.
“I think we have more plays and gadgets than we could ever call in a season, so you work on ones until they come up,” Brady said. “And then you shelve it, and use the four, five others that you’ve kind of got cued up. And then when you use two or three of them, you get some others ready.
“It’s all kind of taking advantage of that over pursuit,” Brady continued. “That particular play to Julian, I threw it to him, you get the whole pursuing, and when you see teams that pursue that well, you have opportunities to take advantage of that over pursuit, and that’s what we do. It’s just like on the flea-flicker. They’re trying to beat you into the backfield to make plays, and when they do that, you hand it off and they try to beat your receivers into the backfield, and it’s a flea-flicker and ends up being a good play.”
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On the double pass play that the Patriots used, Brady joked that Julian Edelman doesn’t care how he gets his hands on the ball.
“He usually wants as many touches as he can get, so whether he’s catching them or throwing them, or running them he likes the ball in his hands. He did a great job with all of them last night.”
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The touchdown to Josh Gordon was actually a variation on the usual destination of the ball, according to Brady.
“The ball usually goes to Julian on that play,” Brady explained. “And I saw the corner [on Josh] bit harder than the guy who was over Julian. Julian thought it was coming to him and he thought I overthrew him, but I saw Josh running up there which gave Josh even more space, and Josh caught it and made the safety miss, and ran however many yards for the touchdown. It was a big play in the game.”
One line of questioning that made Brady think was when he was asked who the fastest, strongest, and toughest Patriots players are.
“There would be some competition for that,” Brady said of the fastest. “I think Devin McCourty would say it would be him. Matt Slater I think would love to challenge Devin for that, in my view. So those two guys have incredible speed. Yeah and I think [Cordarrelle Patterson] and Phillip [Dorsett] would love to get in on that too. I mean you’re talking about tenths of a second.”
On the strongest, Brady thought about it before admitting it’s “probably Marcus Cannon.”
And as for the toughest, the Patriots quarterback gave the nod to his blockers.
“I mean, all the guys up front,” Brady said. “The offensive line, I wouldn’t want to mess with any of those guys. There’s a mean streak in the offensive line. And if you cross any one of those guys, I wouldn’t say it’s going to go very well.”
New England’s next opponent will be the Tennessee Titans, coached by none other than former Patriots linebacker (and occasional tight end) Mike Vrabel. Brady said that he wasn’t’ surprised Vrabel would end up as an NFL coach, but that his success would come in any field.
“Mike would be successful in anything he does in life because he’s that kind of guy,” he said. “We’ve been friends for almost 20 years, and we keep in touch regularly. I mean he’s smart, hard working, he’s so charismatic. He’s a great coach, he was a great player, just a great leader of men. Tennessee’s lucky to have him.”
