On Sunday night, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo ripped the New England Patriots for running a “gimmick” offense against the Houston Texans and basically called them cheaters. He even referenced Spygate and ended his rant with a simple “18-1” callout after a number of Patriots fans began blasting him on Twitter.
Either Ayanbadejo woke up with a clear head on Monday morning, or someone from the Ravens organization told him that his comments were completely unnecessary.
I made selfish comments on twitter last night that reflected poorly upon myself, my teammates, and the organization. For that I apologize.
— Brendon Ayanbadejo (@brendon310) January 14, 2013
Here are the tweets that may have gotten Ayanbadejo into hot water with his teammates:
New England does some suspect stuff on offense. Can’t really respect it. Comparable to a cheap shot b4 a fight
— Brendon Ayanbadejo (@brendon310) January 13, 2013
Are you watching the game pats vs texans? If so you see the hurry snap offense catch em b4 they set up. It’s a gimmick.
— Brendon Ayanbadejo (@brendon310) January 13, 2013
You know the same organization that did spygate and cut a guy the day b4 the Super Bowl
— Brendon Ayanbadejo (@brendon310) January 13, 2013
Whether you agree with Ayanabadejo that the Patriots’ quick-snap offense is sneaky or not, most of his comments were pointless. There’s enough history between New England and Baltimore where bulletin board material is not needed — especially this early in the week. Naturally, Tom Brady said the Patriots are letting the smack talk go in one ear and out the other.
“We’ve had a lot of people comment about our team and our players this year,” Brady told WEEI on Monday. “I think the best thing that we do is ignore the noise and go out and try to prepare. Nothing really that anybody says or does is going to affect what happens next Sunday. If people want to say things or write things, they have the liberty to do that. It doesn’t really have any bearing on what we do.”
When reading the tweets, I got the impression that Ayanbadejo was simply hoping the Texans would win and decided to vent about it once the Patriots began blowing them out. Instead of complaining about the way New England runs its offense, the Ravens linebacker should be working with his team to figure out ways to counter it. It’s probably safe to assume we won’t be hearing much from him again until Sunday, which unfortunately for all of us football fans is still a full six days away.
It’s also interesting to note that Ayanbadejo has a history of trash talking that goes back to his college days. As commenter Gene pointed out, Ayanbadejo, then a senior linebacker at UCLA, ripped USC freshman quarterback Carson Palmer following the Bruins’ 34-17 win over the Trojans in 1998. While Ayanbadejo left for the NFL after that game, USC went on a seven-game winning streak against UCLA, including three wins led by Palmer. Ayanbadejo also said last year that the two best teams in the NFL weren’t playing in the Super Bowl.
Ayanbadejo has a tendency to put his teams in a bad spot with his words.
