Tom Brady finds himself right in the middle of the drama surrounding Antonio Brown.
Brown was officially released by the Buccaneers on Thursday and prior to his release following his controversial exit from Sunday's again against the Jets, the wide receiver took to social media and shared text messages between himself and Bruce Arians, as well as Brady's trainer Alex Guerrero. Brown also tagged Brady in the post.
So, after defending and sticking by Brown for so long, how does Brady feel? The quarterback said Thursday this isn't the time to disclose his feelings.
“I think there’s a lot of personal, obviously, feelings," he said to reporters. "I don’t think this is really the week to discuss it, though. I am just going to do the best I can do as a quarterback for the team and try and put together a great week and finish strong. I mean, you just always deal with different things over the course of the season. That’s what we’re doing this week.”
Arians said Thursday Brown was very upset at halftime of the game about his lack of targets, so Brady was asked how aware he is of the number of targets his receivers are getting?
“You want to get everybody involved, obviously," he said. "I think the receiver position, there’s always — they are a long way from the football when you stand out there. As a quarterback, you do the best you can do. You try and read the coverage and try and find the open guy and realize guys are going to be open and unfortunately, [they] don’t get it sometimes. And other times you make bad reads and you make bad throws. Just part of playing football, playing quarterback.”
Brady and the Buccaneers will wrap up the regular season this week against the Panthers. Tampa Bay is currently the No. 3 seed in the NFC.