Bill O’Brien Talks About His Infamous Sideline Altercation With Brady
“That viral video has been blown way out of proportion,” said O’Brien, who joked that people still refer to him as “the teapot” due to what he said years ago was his Irish heritage.
The play happened in a match-up on the road against Washington back on December 11, 2011. With the Patriots leading 34-27 with just over 6-minnutes remaining in the game, Brady threw an interception on a throw to former Patriots receiver and current coach Tiquan Underwood in the back of the end zone. However, the ball ended up getting picked off after Underwood seemingly rounded out his route as Washington’s Josh Wilson slipped underneath and came up with the turnover.
As Brady sat on the bench, he was saying something to Underwood about the play and O’Brien stepped in, seemingly disagreeing with Brady’s assessment of what happened.
You can see Brady say something to him, and O’Brien then flared up and became quite animated, with former Patriots QB Brian Hoyer stepping in front of them as O’Brien began demonstrably yelling at his quarterback, to the point where Bill Belichick eventually steps in to help calm things down.
Meanwhile, Brady remained on the bench and didn’t reach the level O’Brien did. A few minutes later, O’Brien was seated on the bench looking at photos from the play, with he and Brady getting together shortly after and resuming business as usual.
Needless to say, as bad as it looked in real time, O’Brien remains steadfast that it wasn’t at the level of how it was perceived on the broadcast.
“It was a long story, but he came off on the sideline and he was pissed off,” said O’Brien of Brady. “He had just thrown an interception, and the guy that ran the route didn’t run a great route, got undercut. And Tom was mad, and he was pissed off at everybody, including me. And so we just started going at it. But it only lasted like, not even a minute.
“And Rex Grossman was the quarterback for the Redskins, and they were driving to go to overtime. They could tie it with a touchdown to go to overtime.
After all this time I now understand what the two were so upset about.
They were on the verge of losing to Rex Grossman, five years removed from his one and only good season and in the final weeks of his illustrious NFL career, playing for the typical 5-win Washington Snyders.
