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Influx Of Tom Brady Hot Takes Flooding The Internet, But So Is Some Quality Storytelling

By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) -- Only four teams are still alive in the NFL, and the smaller pool of players still in the spotlight brings with it an influx of stories and talk radio segments focusing on the stars who will determine this year's Super Bowl participants.

And when one of those teams is the Patriots, and when one of the remaining quarterbacks is Tom Brady, you can bet there's going to be a whole lot of yakking taking place around the country.

That discussion comes in various forms. You'll no doubt hear some fiery hot takes, like Colin Cowherd's suggestion that Tom Brady is "playing for his job" this weekend after three straight "clunkers" in the playoffs. (Brady's most recent three playoff games haven't been great, with a 53.7 percent completion rate for 300 yards per game with five touchdowns and four interceptions. But if that qualifies as failure, particularly when glossing over the complete lack of an offensive line in one of those games in Denver, then it's a wonder that any quarterback has ever been able to keep his job in NFL history. Heck, Peyton Manning must have lost his job 10 times throughout his career, right?)

Cowherd is a successful radio host but perhaps is unaware that the internet records everything. And the internet shows that this latest rambling is almost an exact carbon copy from the screed he delivered back in September, when he was pushing for the Patriots to trade Brady.

Scanning the rest of the internet, you'll also see some ... well, whatever it is you'd call this thing from Manish Mehta, who tackled the issue that everyone in the world is talking about: Would Aaron Rodgers have more rings than Brady if the former QB played for Bill Belichick? It's a story so poignant and impactful that it need not even be linked here. The fact that it exists simply makes the world a better place. (And yes, that's the same Mehta who predicted the Jets -- the Jets! -- would seize first place earlier in the season. The Jets!)

But for all of the stupidity that you'll come across, there's plenty of excellent coverage that might be slightly more difficult to find but provides much more substantial information.

Take, for example, this story by Jenny Vrentas of The MMQB, who interviewed numerous coaches and players to provide behind-the-scenes details of just how hard Belichick is on Brady as a coach.

Randy Moss shared this story from the day after he and Brady failed to connect on a simple 5-yard route in a 2007 practice:

So we come in the next day, Bill Belichick puts up the film and basically says, 'Are you kidding me? I have my such and such All-Pro wide receiver, and I have my All-Pro quarterback, and y'all cannot complete a 5-yard out?' He said, 'Tom, I can go down here and get the local high school quarterback to come and complete me a 5-yard out.' And everybody was like, Oooh. So basically, when he humiliated Tom, in front of the boys, man, we went out there and put everybody up. I don't care who it was; whoever was on that defense that day, they got it. And that was practice. I had never seen that, but I had heard that, and that's what I was actually looking for in a head coach. When I went to the New England Patriots, all I wanted to do was get around a team that wanted to get out there and win.

Donte Stallworth also shared a story from the 2007 season, when Belichick criticized one bad pass from Brady:

There was nothing said between us, but it was understood: If Brady is getting it, no one is safe. There were a lot of new guys, big-time free agents brought in that year also. Bill is this way anyway, but he was definitely trying to set the tone. I just immediately fell in line. That was all it took. But Brady loves to be challenged. I don't think that bothers him. I think he enjoys that, actually, knowing him.

Vrentas also talked to Boston College offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler, who's known Brady since his first year at Michigan. Loeffler watched tape of Brady and then reached out to the quarterback to praise him for his play -- play so good, mind you, that Brady managed to put himself at the front of the MVP discussion despite missing the forced four games of the season. Loeffler told Brady, "This is the best I've seen you play."

His response was, 'I can play MUCH BETTER.' He's a nut, you know? He's a perfectionist. The quarterback position is impossible to be perfect, but he's chasing after this goal. He is the most relentless person I've ever been around, and that stems back to his days at Michigan. ... He was able to become mentally tough. Knowing him the way I do, I think he thrives off that and wouldn't want it any other way.

It's a story that examines the Belichick-Brady dynamic in fun ways and is worth the full read.

Sports Illustrated also published a story by Tim Layden which includes commentary from many of the men who caught passes from Brady, dating back from his days as a freshman in California to his years in the NFL.

Jabar Gaffney: "My whole life, people are going to ask me, What was it like to play with Tom? It was everything -- that's what it was like."

Wes Welker:  "What we played, it was almost like a controlled form of street ball. Tom would see what I was going to do by my body language. He just wanted me to be decisive. If you get wishy-washy, be ready to get mother-effed [by Brady] pretty good. But then the next day, in a meeting, he would use this soft voice: O.K., babe. On this one ... . He's ultra-competitive, but he knows that the next day is not the time to yell."

Stallworth: "We're breaking the huddle, and Brady sees I'm in the game [instead of Moss]. We've both got this Oh, s--- look on our faces because I've never practiced this route. So Brady says, 'Just go deep,' and the play ends up being a 69-yard touchdown. We literally drew it up in the sand. The guy is amazing."

Aaron Shea, teammate at Michigan:: "I lived in the basement, and he lived above me. Five-thirty in the morning, you could hear the door open and close. That was Tom, going to run stadium stairs, even though the whole team was [scheduled to run] stairs at 2:30."

Troy Brown: "I never saw another rookie quarterback like him. He was fourth on the depth chart, but when he got a rep, he would not hesitate to tell veteran receivers if they did something wrong. Typical Tom. He just wanted to kick somebody's butt."

Like the Vrentas story, Layden's is a worthy read, as it's always interesting when the curtain gets peeled back just a bit on one of the most guarded superstars in sports.

ESPN also ran a story on Wednesday in which Ian O'Connor interviewed Jay Flannelly, a friend of Brady's from the Michigan who's kept in touch with Brady to this day. He's been profiled before, and the story of "the dish-washer known as 'The Beav' who breaks down video and helps Brady" has become well-known, but he did offer one particularly juicy nugget in the ESPN story:

The Beav was an NFL intern at the 2000 draft, and he said he called Brady an hour or so after he was picked in the sixth round by the Patriots, No. 199 overall. As a part-time New Yorker who had attended St. John's to acquire the grades needed to enroll at Michigan, Flannelly told Brady he'd seen a little of Hofstra's Gio Carmazzi, who was taken by Brady's childhood team, the Niners, in the third round. Flannelly said he liked what he saw. Brady didn't have much of a reaction to that. Flannelly said his friend sounded equally thrilled and relieved to have been finally drafted.

On cue, Brady also sounded fiercely determined.

"I'm going there to take Bledsoe's job," he told the dish washer who dressed in Bledsoe jerseys.

 

Flannelly also added this:

I am just as amazed as the next guy that No. 12 talks to me still. But that's him. I think he thinks, 'Why would I not talk to Jay? He stood with me when I was nothing.'

So, this week as the game draws near, the interesting stories are there to be discovered. They just might be laying in a few more weeds than usual.

You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.

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