People are still talking about Tom Brady's 17-yard, ahem, sprint against the Dolphins that ended not with him sliding but taking on Dolphins safety Walt Aikens.
It led to joking teammates and Cheetah Facebook memes.
"It was the slowest 17 yards I've ever seen in my life," wide receiver Julian Edelman said, adding later: "It's always fun seeing the Clydesdale run. I call him Brady Vick."
"Oh man," fullback James Develin said. "Looked like a gazelle out there."
So why didn't Brady slide at the end of the third-longest run of his career? Competitiveness.
“No, I could have slid, but I wasn’t in the best mood that time,” Brady admitted. “If he was a bigger guy I would have thought really hard about sliding, but once I was in the secondary... things happen pretty quick for me out there. I'm not the fastest guy out there, so things close down pretty quick.”
But coach Bill Belichick has no problem with Brady's decision to take on a defender.
“I’ve coached for a long time and I don’t question players' decisions on the field when they try to make them to help the team win,” the coach said on a conference call with reporters. ...
“I think that they do the best that they can,” he continued. “They are trying to win. They are trying to win just as much as everybody else on the team is. [I’m] not saying every decision is a great one. It’s the same thing with a coach. I’m not saying every [coaching] decision is a great one. But every one is made with the intention to help this team win to the best that I can or an individual can for the team. So I don’t second-guess those.”
