From Minneapolis: Patriots Arrive, Brady Asks For Leniency For WEEI Personality

Season Ticket continues its week of Super Bowl shows from Radio Row at the Mall of America outside Minneapolis today. Host Chris Gasper (@cgasper) and the Globe's Patriots' Reporter Nora Princiotti talk about the Patriots' big night meeting the media - and Tom Brady's call for a truce with a WEEI personality.

Guest

On Tom Brady's dispute with WEEI and other questions from the media

Chris Gasper: The big story was Tom Brady and the story with WEEI about the comments that were made about his daughter … I think because it was the Super Bowl, this story just blew up. And because we didn’t really have anything from the game to talk about, that was the big story. And anything involving Tom Brady is going to be a huge, huge story. What were some of the football questions and football elements that Tom talked about?

Nora Princiotti: He answered a few questions about the Eagles’ defensive front and “Are you going to have nightmares of Fletcher Cox ruining your life?” He did get a lot of questions like, “What advice would you give to Nick Foles in this situation?” and I think Brady answered those questions in a way that I’ve seen him answer questions about a lot of young or less-experienced quarterbacks. He basically just said, “If they’re in this spot they don’t need my advice. I’m sure they’re getting advice from plenty of people.”

"I think because it was the Super Bowl, this story just blew up. And because we didn’t really have anything from the game to talk about, that was the big story. And anything involving Tom Brady is going to be a huge, huge story."

Chris Gasper on the Brady/WEEI dispute

On which team Minnesota fans are pulling for in Super Bowl LII
Chris Gasper: What’s interesting here is the Eagles are the hated team here in Minnesota because they just defeated the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Championship game. They blew up what looked to be a season of destiny for the Vikings, the whole "Minnesota Miracle" thing against the Saints. So, on Super Bowl Opening Night, there (weren't) any boos, really, for the Patriots. But when the Eagles came out, there was booing. These Minnesota fans, I think, are rooting for the Patriots, which is remarkable because that never happens to the Patriots in a neutral-site situation with neutral fans.

Nora Princiotti: It will be interesting to see how much that carries over to the game because, if you’re from Minnesota, maybe you go to opening night, but you don’t drop however many dollars on a Super Bowl ticket.

On the Eagles being considered an underdog
Chris Gasper: Tom can say whatever he wants about, “Oh, anyone in the Super Bowl isn’t an underdog,” but he knows that’s not true because, you go back to Super Bowl XXXVI and people looked at it and said, “Kurt Warner! (Will win.) This 'Tom Brady' kid who’s in his second year - we don’t even know how good he is.” And [the Patriots] were obvious underdogs in that Super Bowl, and they used that to motivate themselves and fuel themselves. So Tom knows there are underdogs in the Super Bowl, but how big of an underdog, in your opinion, are the Eagles and is that warranted when you look at it? When you take the brand names out of it - Belichick/Brady vs. [Doug] Peterson/Foles. The Eagles were a 13-3 team, they were the number one seed in the NFC and they were the best team all year long.

Nora Princiotti: The thing is that - you can’t take the brand names out of it because I think the Eagles have a deep and talented roster that was just a fabulous example of roster construction. There’s no better example than the quarterback position. Obviously they would prefer to have Carson Wentz but, most teams, if they lose their MVP-candidate starting quarterback, they’re not in this position anymore. So, I think tons of credit to the Eagles, but you can’t ignore the fact that it’s Belichick-Pederson, Brady-Foles.

"The Eagles have a deep and talented roster that was just a fabulous example of roster construction. There’s no better example than the quarterback position."

Nora Princiotti

On Patriots coaches Josh McDaniels and Matt Patricia before their likely last games with New England

Nora Princiotti: Josh seemed kind of nostalgic and he was talking about coming to the Patriots, being youn,g and he had a wife and he was like, “We have no money but we were in love,” and it was actually kind of cheesy but in a cute way. It was so different from the normal, “We’ll just do the best for the team and all the players work hard” that we’re used to … Talking about the old days and his first days in New England really seemed to have struck a chord with him and he got kind of emotional about it.

Chris Gasper: There’s this whole sense around this Super Bowl with this team that it’s sort of like the last ride. This is it. This is the last ride for everybody, and I don’t know if that puts more pressure on them to win this game - there’s already an enormous amount of pressure - but it just seems like that’s the whole undercurrent of this thing. Take the football out of it because that’s what we see, but these are people that consider themselves a family and deeply care about each other. And they know this is the last time they’re all going to be together like this.