Memo to Rex Ryan, Antonio Cromartie and any other members of the New York Jets who wants to talk trash about the New England Patriots. You might be getting the local media and bloggers who follow your team stirred up, but no one in New England seems to care what you say.
Asked about Cromartie calling him "an ass----" Brady said simply "Ive been called a lot worse." Patriots head coach Bill Belichick hasn't taken the bait from Ryan or Cromartie, either.
Brady, Belichick and the boys are obviously not going to fall into Rex's little (or large, really) verbal trap. I figured, though, that somebody in New England had to be annoyed enough to shoot back at the mouthy Jets. So, I went over to SB Nation Boston. Not a peep. Surely someone over at SB Nation's Patriots blog, Pats Pulpit, would have some words of wisdom for Rex and the Jets. Again, nothing.
Apparently, Patriots fans have taken their cue from the team. Ignore the Jets.
One guy who hasn't been able to ignore all the blabbering coming from the Jets is ESPN football analyst Chris Mortensen. During a radio appearance this morning, Mortensen talked about all the Jets yapping.
"I’ve never seen anything like it. I really haven’t.
"Listen, when your coach is out there doing it — and Rex really does have a lot of respect for Bill Belichick. And who wouldn’t? And it appears Belichick respects Rex. But when your head coach does it, it just basically tells the rest of the team, have at it. Now, Cromartie’s never won any awards for being the brightest bulb, so, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to stir up that hornet’s nest there in New England. Not me. But I think there must be something just trying to get these guys to a different level of energy that maybe they throughout was lacking last time."
Maybe what Ryan really wants here is to distract the Patriots from preparing for Sunday's game. He and his players are certainly creating lots of great stuff for the blogosphere, but I don't think that is what they care about. Then again, maybe it is. It's sort of hard to tell.