Tom Brady has spoken.
In an interview with Westwood One Sports host Jim Gray, the Patriots quarterback suggested that Friday’s report of a growing rift between the team’s powerful trio — Brady, coach Bill Belichick and owner Robert Kraft — is misguided and has not changed his expectation to finish his career with the organization.
“I think for a long time we’ve done a great job of winning games, and it forces people to be creative with what they talk about,” Brady told Gray. “So speculating on relationships or what my feelings are towards my team or my organization or players or coaches, you know, I can only speak for myself. And really my relationships with everybody that I deal with, I feel are so positive, to think anything differently of that is complete nonsense.
“[Mr. Kraft] is a great person, man. He has been like a second father to me in so many ways. I have a great relationship with Coach Belichick. We’ve worked together for 18 years. There’s no coach I’d rather play for, and I’ve loved my experience here. I certainly couldn’t be the player I am today without playing for such a great coach. So I see these as all positive things. A lot of people … that obviously doesn’t sell many newspapers, but, to me, I have such gratitude toward my time here and I’ve loved my experience. I continue to love my experience.”
Brady doubled down on a previous statement that his hope is to always be a Patriot.
“Well, in that aspect I haven’t changed at all,” he said. “And, you know, I love this team, I love this organization, and hopefully we can go out and make everybody proud by finishing the season the right way.”
With New England set to play host to either Tennessee or Buffalo in the divisional round next Saturday, Brady maintained that the team is not “fractured” and that the current dialogue has not made the locker room tenser or served as a distraction.
“I think, in so many ways, adversity that our team has faced over the years only makes us stronger,” he said. “Everything is a great opportunity and we have a great opportunity as a team. And we’ve worked very hard to get ourselves to this spot: to be 13-3, to have the one seed, to have the bye is a very hard thing to do. So to let anything get in the way of that and all the hard work that people have really put into it, and what we’ve achieved—to take away from that—it would be very unfortunate if we let this opportunity get away from us.”