The New England Patriots’ shot at a perfect season has gone and Tom Brady isn’t pleased, although there was some good news for the Patriots as it emerged that Rob Gronkowski appears to have escaped serious injury.
The Super Bowl champions lost to a Denver Broncos side led by Peyton Manning’s back-up, Brock Osweiler, in overtime on Sunday night, and Brady said the result had affected him deeply.
“It was a very hard loss. I don’t think I’ve ever been so pissed off after a loss. I think everyone felt the same way,” Brady sports station WEEI on Monday. “Hopefully we can use it as motivation going forward.”
The Patriots slipped to 10-1 after the defeat, and are still all but guaranteed to win the AFC East, but Brady was unhappy with a game he knows his team had perhaps should have won. “Tough game. This one hurts,” Brady said. “I think the circumstances of the game, the circumstances of the situation that we were in – having a good lead in the fourth quarter, then having a couple huge third downs that we made called back by penalty, then losing a player like Gronk in the fourth quarter, and then fighting back like we did to get it to overtime.”
Brady was also seen arguing calls with officials during the game, although he seemed to have tempered his view on Monday morning. “We didn’t get many [calls] last night. I don’t know why or why not. You think they’re looking at it, and they probably are,” Brady said. “Sometimes officials miss it too, I totally understand that.”
Perhaps the biggest worry for the Patriots was the injury to Gronkowski in the fourth quarter. The tight end was carted off the field after apparently injuring his knee, a blow for a team that has already lost offensive weapons such as Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola and Dion Lewis to injury. However, Gronkowski was able to walk to the team bus unaided after the game and Brady was upbeat about his chances of returning to action in the near future.
“[Gronkowski] was in decent spirits, so that made me happy,” Brady said. “They have some things they’re going to have to check on, and we’ll go from there.”
ESPN reported on Monday that Gronkowski has a bruised knee rather than the possible ligament damage originally feared, and could play against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.
