“I don’t often say exactly how I feel,” Brady said. “And I don’t often say exactly what I think. Because you don’t want to cause controversy. When there is controversy, all your teammates start getting asked about ‘What Brady said.’ Really, it becomes a distraction to the team. You’re trying to get ready for an important game on the weekend, and then now, on Thursday and Friday, the only thing that people want to talk about is some comment the quarterback on your team made.

"When that happens, I feel bad and a certain responsibility to my teammates that in some way I let them down. That they have to be cleaning up a mess that I made for the rest of the team. And that’s never a position that I want to put my teammates in because we have too many other things to worry about.”