Tom Brady playing up underdog role in advance of AFC Championship
The New England Patriots are technically underdogs as they head into their AFC Championship matchup against the Denver Broncos. Oddsmakers currently have the Pats somewhere in the neighborhood of a four-point underdog, but would anyone really be surprised if they won? After all, this is a team that has appeared in five Super Bowls since 2002.
No one is going to be shocked if Tom Brady and company beat Peyton Manning’s crew, but that isn’t stopping Brady from embracing the underdog role.
“Truthfully, I don’t turn the TV on, I don’t read anything,” Brady told WEEI on Monday, via ESPNBoston.com. “I just try to focus on what I need to do and, like I said, put all that stuff around us — I know different times, Coach will make us aware of, I know when we played Baltimore nobody picked us to win, and I’m sure no one is going to pick us to win this week.
“We’ve got a bunch of underdogs on our team and we’ll be an underdog again, and we’ll see how that shapes up at the end of the week. But I know we’re as tough, as physical as we’ve ever been, and that’s how we’re going to need to go out and play this game.”
Brady certainly isn’t an underdog. He has three championship rings and a super model wife who makes more money than he does. That said, guys like Julian Edelman and LeGarrette Blount aren’t exactly viewed as championship-caliber players. Yet, they have still managed to carry the team in recent weeks.
Bill Belichick uses anything and everything as motivation for his team before a big game. He’ll certainly harp on the fact that the Patriots are Vegas underdogs, but they are hardly your traditional underdog story. You know how most people usually root for the underdog? Something tells me that won’t be the case on Sunday.
