National Football League

Belichick reportedly never believed Brady's Deflategate story

Published May. 22, 2015 3:30 p.m. ET

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Robert Kraft's decision not to appeal the New England Patriots' punishment for Deflategate left Tom Brady to fight the harsh discipline on his own.

According to the Boston Herald's Ron Borges, Brady has been on his own throughout the prolonged incident. Borges was a recent guest on CSNNE's "Sports Tonight" and was asked by host Michael Felger if there was a chance Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick thought Brady wasn't being transparent about his role in Deflategate. Borges responded with some pretty eye-opening comments.

"Belichick never believed (Brady's) story, from what I was told," Borges said, via CSNNE.com. "(Belichick) didn't tell it to me, but people who know him (told me).

"Because they all know. Why do you think all those retired quarterbacks, the Troy Aikmans of the world — Troy Aikman is about as nice a guy as I've ever met in football — nobody's backed (Brady). Nobody, not a single guy. Why do you think that is? Because they hate Brady? No. Because they're not stupid. They know nothing's done with those balls that the quarterback doesn't want done."

Actually, a number of QBs did back Brady — including a couple of Hall of Famers.

Here's Belichick's statement from January in response to the initial Deflategate reports: "We all know that quarterbacks, kickers, specialists have certain preferences on footballs. They know a lot more about it than I do. They're a lot more sensitive to it than I am. I hear them comment on it from time to time, but I can tell you and they will tell you that there is never any sympathy whatsoever from me on that subject. Zero.

"Tom's personal preferences on his footballs are something he can talk about in much better detail and information than I could possibly provide."

NFL.com ranks Brady NFL's No. 5 quarterback — with an asterisk