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Patriots' Kyle Van Noy Calls Out ESPN's Max Kellerman For His Terrible Takes

BOSTON (CBS) -- For someone who spouts nonsense on a regular basis, ESPN's Max Kellerman sure does wield a lot of power. At the very least, he's gotten inside the ears of many, many people.

And that list of people now officially includes at least one member of the Patriots, as linebacker Kyle Van Noy called out Max Kellerman by name on Wednesday in an interview on Zolak & Bertrand.

Unprompted, Van Noy commended Scott Zolak for his tweet mocking Kellerman's opinions of quarterback Tom Brady. The conversation went like this. (SI's Albert Breer was also in studio.)

Van Noy: First, I want to start this show off with Mr. Scott Zolak with his little tweet at Max Kellerman.

Zolak: You liked that, didn't ya?

Van Noy: You went after him. I liked it. I respect that. I just wanted to commend you for that.

Breer: So there's an awareness of what Max Kellerman's been saying in the Patriots locker room?

Van Noy: Well maybe since everybody says we need to stick to football, he needs to stick to his boxing whatever he does, his commentating. It is what it is. We enjoy being the underdog. We hear people -- guys are old, the linebackers are slow -- but at the end of the day, we believe in the guys that we have in our room, we just want to play as one unit. Offense, defense, and special teams, we know what we're capable of. We just want to play as a team.

Breer: So do you guys suck?

Van Noy: Oh, you did your homework, huh? Honestly, that's just a joke. Because we've been hearing it all year, #wesuck. So it's kind of just fun, just playing around with people, because we know what we're capable of, and we just want to play. Like guys have been saying all week in the media, give us a ball, give us some lines, some field goal posts, and let's play.

Van Noy was referencing this tweet:

Marc Bertrand alerted Van Noy to the fact that the Patriots are legitimately underdogs this week, with Vegas and many experts picking against them.

Van Noy: I like that. I like when people tell us we can't do anything or win anything. We just keep proving people wrong. We're excited for this challenge. It's hard to go into Arrowhead Stadium and come out with a W, but we're gonna do our very best. And I'm excited for this challenge, I'm excited to play Patrick Mahomes again, I'm excited to play under the lights with all the pressure, I'm excited to play with the guys again, another week to play with the group of men we got. We've got a good group of men here. Keep counting us out.

Breer asked Van Noy if hearing from outside doubters actually does motivate players.

Van Noy: I mean, at the end of the day, you don't need motivation to play in the AFC championship. We know how big of a blessing it is to get here. But we earned the right to get here, and I think that's what people forget. We battled our asses off all year to get to this point. So what better way to just go and grab what's ours?

The AFC Championship Game will kick off Sunday night in Kansas City.

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