Good-natured ribbing. Aaron Rodgers couldn’t help but take a shot at his friend and fellow Super Bowl hopeful Tom Brady during a recent interview.The Green Bay Packers quarterback, 38, referenced the University of Michigan alum, 44, during a Wednesday, January 19, chat with Canadian network Sportsnet. “This is too firm for the Patriots,” he joked, commenting on a football handed to him by a journalist.Rodgers was joking about Deflategate, a scandal that engulfed the NFL in 2015 after Brady was accused of ordering the deliberate deflation of footballs used in the AFC Championship Game, played in January of that year.
At the time, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers athlete was the quarterback for the New England Patriots, who won the championship against the Indianapolis Colts.
The Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl in February 2015.An investigation was launched in early 2015, resulting in the Patriots being fined $1 million and forfeiting two draft picks for 2016.
Brady, for his part, was suspended for four games. After some back and forth, he eventually served his suspension in 2016, missing the first four games of that season.When accusations against him first arose, Brady denied having anything to do with the deflated balls. “I didn’t alter the ball in any way,” he said during a January 2015 press conference. “I would never do anything outside of the rules of play.”Though Brady and Rodgers aren’t quite BFFs, they are close enough to exchange diet tips.
Read more on usmagazine.com