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September 17, 2007

Bruschi speaks out

BY KEVIN McNAMARA
Journal Sports Writer

FOXBORO – Bill Belichick may not be talking much but his players certainly felt the heat from last week’s spying scandal.

When media, fans and especially other players around the NFL started calling into question the legitimacy of the Patriots’ three Super Bowl wins in light of Belichick’s penchant for taping opponent’s sideline signals, a line was crossed. The players says they have too much pride in their accomplishments through the Belichick Era to let others take shots at them.

No one seemed more upset than the prideful linebacker Tedy Bruschi. The 12-year veteran was clearly upset with the developments of the previous week and called last night’s 38-14 win ''one of the biggest of my career,’’ because his reputation and that of previous Patriots players was on the line.

''To come out and win this game after hearing some of the things that were said about our team, hey, this victory was for all Patriots teams past and present,’’ he said.

Asked just what bothered him from comments made by other players, Bruschi sniffed, ''Hey, I’ve got something to say to all the players in the league who wanted to comment on this. If you’re on past teams and you’ve got doubts and all these hypotheticals, I’ve got a hypothetical for you. Let’s get all the players that played with us and get them back. Then get all the players you had and bring them back on your team. And let’s play again. We would win again, period.’’

The Patriots pride themselves on focusing only on the next game on their schedule and those thoughts were crystallized this week. Once the NFL slapped Belichick with a $500,000 fine and the Pats another $250,000 (plus a first round pick), the doubters began to surface.

But after posting identical 38-14 wins over the Jets and Chargers to start the season, the players feel they’ve made a statement that any extra 'help’ from scouting films has little effect on their play.

''This was different. This wasn’t people calling us out or some other type of gamesmanship. This was different,’’ said Bruschi. ''It was a different atmosphere in this locker room because of the way things were going on this week. Did we use that going out there? We didn’t really. We just buckled down in the locker room and focused and just said `we need to win this game. We need to win the game, period.’’

Quarterback Tom Brady clearly heard the rumblings about the legitimacy of his team’s wins as well. Like Bruschi, he thinks the team's record should stand for itself.

''We’ve won quite a few big games around here,’’ said Brady. ''If you were to listen to everything that everybody says and respond, there’s just too many battles to fight. There’s only one battle that I care about and that’s playing football and performing well. We control that. You just can’t go out and respond to what everybody says about you. There’s not enough hours in the day. Especially after you’ve been winning for the last six or seven years.’’

Posted by Kevin  at 1:13 AM | Permalink