Brady: Trick plays 'part of football'
— -- FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Quarterback Tom Brady on Monday tried to soften his remarks regarding Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh's gripes after Saturday night's game but also made it clear the New England Patriots are making no apologies for their approach.
Brady, in his weekly interview on sports radio WEEI, was asked about the Patriots' unique plan to have just four eligible offensive linemen in the game, a strategy that prompted Harbaugh to complain about the "substitution trick" following the Patriots' 35-31 victory. When Brady was asked about Harbaugh's comments Saturday he said the Ravens should study the rulebook.
On Monday, Brady seemed to go out of his way to soften that stance.
"Let me say first, I have a lot of respect for him as a coach and obviously that team is one of the toughest teams we face. It's always a tough matchup," Brady said on WEEI's "Dennis and Callahan Show."
"It was a play that we liked and we thought would work. We had a couple versions of it. It's kind of an alert play for our team and we made them figure out what to do. I think that's what it looked like to me. We had to execute it, we had to make the appropriate calls and block it, and make the plays, and I was proud of us. That was a good weapon for us.
"That's part of football. You have to prepare for everything."
On the three plays the Patriots used just four offensive linemen, they completed three passes for 41 yards. Add in a 5-yard unsportsmanlike penalty on Harbaugh as a result of arguing with officials -- in that scenario, the Ravens were penalized half the distance to the goal -- and that accounted for a total of 46 yards specifically as a result of the unique plan.
Harbaugh said Saturday that the NFL should look into the Patriots' strategy but the league told ESPN's Chris Mortensen on Sunday that the Patriots' substitutions were legal from both a formation and reporting standpoint.
For those that want to take it one step further, the Ravens also had a 12-men-on-the-field penalty during the drive in which the Patriots had those three plays with four offensive linemen. If adding those five yards, the Patriots' trickery accounted for 51 yards.
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