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Brandon Meriweather On Lighting Up Tom Brady; Fighting Over Jacks

BOSTON (CBS) -- Patriots quarterback Tom Brady found himself as LeGarrette Blount's lead blocker at one point during Sunday's win over the Jets, a precarious situation for any quarterback.

But for some reason, no Jets player put a finger on Brady. None of them even tried to block him, and almost looked afraid to hit him even though Brady was fair game at that point. Former Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather, joining 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher & Rich for his weekly interview on Wednesday, said he would have tried to destroy Brady if presented with that opportunity.

"Unless I was the only one there to make the tackle, then I would have shoo-shooed [Brady] to make the tackle. But as long as I knew there was someone else around to make the tackle, I would have destroyed Tom," said Meriweather.

Meriweather said there's a simple explanation for why no Jets player put Brady on the ground: "Because it's Tom Brady. If you hit Tom too hard, you're going to get fined. He's Mr. NFL. Any time you have someone like Tom or Peyton [Manning], someone of that caliber, you try not to hit them."

He said that defensive players resent the special treatment that quarterbacks receive.

"You always get mad about that. You feel like all players should be treated the same," said Meriweather.

With Jeff Fisher and the Los Angeles Rams coming to Foxboro this weekend, the conversation shifted to bounties in the NFL. Meriweather said players are always talking with each other and it was clear there were bounties out there during his playing days, but Meriweather never played for a coach with a bounty system.

"If I played for a coach who put out bounties, I would have been out of the league a long time ago," Meriweather laughed, adding that it would have been nice to get a little extra something for the big hits he was known for delivering. "I was like, 'Damn, you're all getting a bonus for doing this? I'm getting fined!' I didn't even want the bounty; I just wanted someone to pay my fine."

As the conversations tend to do, things got a little silly when Meriweather was asked the last fight he's gotten into. It was two years ago with someone who owed him money over a basketball game, but it was only one punch delivered by Meriweather. That's far from the dumbest fight he's ever had, which happened when he was 16 over a game of Jacks.

Yes, Jacks.

"The dumbest [fight] was over a game of Jacks, when you bounce the ball and snatch them things off the ground. I was 16 and we got into a fight over that. It was the dumbest thing," he explained. "He would pick up one, pick up four. I was like, 'I ain't playing you no more.' He punched me because I called him a cheater."

Listen to the full interview below, including Meriweather's thoughts on taking paternity leave, his favorite Christmas movies and turning down million dollar endorsements:

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