An open letter from Tom Brady to the Pittsburgh Steelers

Hi, I’m Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriots, and I am not an a**hole.

As a Steelers player, coach or fan, you may think I, my teammates and my coach, the genius Bill Belichick, are a**holes, but I can assure you, we are not.

Why am I assuring you I am not an a**hole? Because you, Mr. Mike Tomlin, coach of the Steelers, called me, my teammates and my coach a**holes while addressing your team last Sunday in the locker room following an 18-16 victory over the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. You were mad, coach, because we (my Patriots) had a day-and-a-half head-start on preparation for the AFC Championship game that takes place this evening at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Sorry, but it’s not my fault and it’s not coach Belichick’s fault that we had a lot more time to prepare for you and your charges.

Anyway, I know about this thanks to the Facebook Live feed Antonio Brown, your star receiver, posted on the Internet while you were saying all these mean and nasty things about us.

I would thank Antonio but, as everyone has been saying all week since he posted his feed, he violated the sanctity of the locker room. Yes, make no mistake about it, what Brown did in that locker room—a sacred place that’s the domain of players, where they can hide from the public eye and do things such as swear, play poker, laugh and haze rookies—was just plain wrong.

As far as I, the fans, most of the media, Brown’s teammates and Congress are concerned, what No. 84 did was on the level of Ray Lewis’ missing white suit in terms of NFL controversies. Dare I say, it’s almost as bad as the time Richard Sherman called out Michael Crabtree on national TV following the 2013/2014 NFC title game between the Seahawks and 49ers?

You know what? It’s probably worse. I mean, if you’re going to Facebook Live something from the Steelers’ headquarters, Antonio, the least you could have done was wait until coach Tomlin went over the game plan during the weekly team meeting.

Fortunately, I took care of that thanks to a “pen” I “accidentally” dropped in the Steelers locker room when I gave Big Ben his prized jersey following my 27-16 win at Heinz Field on October 23.

But I digress.

The main point of this open letter is to tell you that—well—I was getting kind of bored with all these AFC title game appearances (we’re up to 6-straight), and I may have not cared enough about winning this particular one. However, when I found out that not only did Tomlin call me, my teammates and coach Belichick a**holes, but that he was actually trying to motivate his players to defeat us tonight at Gillette Stadium, I was personally offended.

Where was the humility? You know, the kinds of things that coaches and players say before a big game, like, “Our A+ game couldn’t beat their B- game” or whatever it was Ben Roethlisberger told the media in the days before Pittsburgh took on the Colts in the 2005/2006 divisional title game.

Those are the kinds of things that should be said before big playoff games, especially when they’re against us, the New England Patriots.

How dare any team think they can win against us?

Remember back about 10 years, when Anthony Smith, a young safety from Syracuse, guaranteed a victory against my undefeated Patriots?

You saw what happened, right? Smith broke the code by not showing a nauseating level of respect for another team or player, and he made us angry and motivated to actually win that game, and the result was a 34-13 butt-whipping.

You can expect the same treatment this time around, coach Tomlin. I was going to let you guys slide, you know because of the whole Brady/Manning/Roethlisberger Super Bowl quarterback cycle since 2003, but forget that script.

It’s on now!

Prepare yourselves for a Patriots team that is now motivated by something besides reaching the Super Bowl.