“As athletes, we have the biggest influence on the game,” Brady said. “You hate for it to come down to a decision that’s out of your hands. It was really one play in the game. And we shouldn’t have really even been in that situation. The most frustrating part is just that we had plenty of opportunities to win that we didn’t take advantage of. So, you hate to come out of the game and blame something that’s out of your control, whether you agree with it or don’t agree with it.
“I’m sure everyone has their own feelings on it. My own personal feeling is yeah, there’s frustration. I was certainly frustrated at the moment it happened. But also going to the locker room and understanding that we really blew the chances that we had, that’s more the overriding factor for me.”
Brady insisted Bill Belichick did not directly tell the players to avoid discussing the controversy.
“He didn’t say anything,” Brady recalled. “He just said, ‘We played hard, hold your head high, we’ve got our whole season ahead of us, let’s not make any excuses and move on.”
The veteran quarterback acknowledged he’s never seen a short throw called an uncatchable ball as it was Monday.
“No, I haven’t. I’m sure there’s a first time for everything,” Brady said. “We get our fair share of calls, and we don’t [get others]. Referees never want to be in that position, either, where they have to make a judgment call like that. They wish it would not come down to that, either, I’m sure, because they don’t want to play that kind of role in the game. They did, that was that situation. They made a call, and then they overturned the call. I guess being in the NFL for as long as I’ve been in, you see kind of everything. It so happened, and we’re going to have to move on.
“You don’t have long to grieve in the NFL. You feel crappy for the flight home, and then you start evaluating what we need to do better. And certainly we’re on to Denver at this point.”
