In the few months since the Super Bowl LII loss where Malcolm Butler didn't play a single defensive snap, a few members of the Patriots have given their take on what happened.
Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Santa Monica, California on Monday with Jim Gray moderating, Tom Brady was the latest and he said he wished Butler had played in the game.
The quarterback said it wasn't until afterwards that he realized Butler had been completely benched, as he said during the game Butler was giving him encouragement and he just thought he wasn't in some of the defensive packages.
"I don't make the decisions," Brady said to Gray. "I am telling you the truth. I wish he would have played, but the coach chose not to play him and we still had a chance to win."
Added Brady: "I'll say this: For a team, this side of the room is the offense and this side is the defense. We don't interfere with them much. I didn't know. Malcolm kept coming over to me during the game and was like 'Come on, TB, let's go.' And I kept going, 'What defense are we in where Malcolm's not on the field?' Is it short-yardage, goal line? And then after the game, I found out. So I just didn't know. And I asked Malcolm and Malcolm said, 'I don't know. Coach has just decided something different.' I said, 'OK.' So I don't know what was a part of that decision-making, but I know we were trying to win the game. I don't think we were trying to do anything but win."
The 40-year-old QB said he hasn't discussed what happened with Bill Belichick.
"You don't make all the decisions," he said. "I can control what I can control. So much of what my performance has been over the years is how much can I maximize what I can do? I can't run. I can't catch. I can't block. I can't tackle. I have my job and I am going to do the best I can. I have to trust everyone else to do the same thing and sometimes it works out. For our team it has worked out better than every other team for a long time, so how do you nit-pic a few things? Everyone is trying in my belief to do the best thing. It just doesn't always work out.
"I love that particular player, Malcolm. I have a great relationship and history with him. He has moved on in his life. He's on a different team."
When speaking about the loss as a whole, Brady said the game "sucked," but it did give him a good teaching moment for two of his kids, and being a proud dad with the oldest.
"Part of it is it's going to be my 19th season upcoming and when you're young you don't have the perspective on your career. I certainly didn't," he said. "I've played with the Patriots my entire career and we won three Super Bowls before I was 26 years old. We had all this success and I was like, 'What?' My life had changed so much. Then we went a long period of time without winning a Super Bowl because it is hard to do, and then we won in 2014. There was so much appreciation because I had experienced so many adversities in my career in different ways.
"Because I had that perception, after this season I finished the game, did the interviews after with the press and was walking to the locker room and I had my wife there and I had my three kids. My daughter, who is five, and my middle son, who is eight, were crying. I was like, 'I can't be crying.' I saw them and gave them a big hug and I was like, 'Guys, this is sports. Daddy doesn't always win. Daddy doesn't always win. You try the best you can. Sometimes it doesn't go the way you want it to, but that doesn't discourage you from trying again.' My oldest son, he was like, 'Dad, you did your best.' It was a good moment for a father.
"The point is those things have changed me in my life. I have always evolved. I have grown so much since I started and based on the circumstances in my life, I can deal with them better than I have in the past when really the only thing, not that it's the most important thing, it's just there are a lot of other important things in my life, especially my family and my kids and teaching them lessons hoping that they will learn watching me do something I love to do."
