In the words of "The Wire's" Omar Little, "You come at the king, you best not miss."
Tom Brady is no longer talking trash on the field. The seven-time Super Bowl champion was known for his passionate energy during his playing days, but he has since hung up the cleats for a role in broadcasting.
Just because he can't chirp players face-to-face, that doesn't mean he's letting anyone off the hook. That was the case last week when comments from Baker Mayfield discussing Brady's career in Tampa Bay began to surface.
Mayfield succeeded Brady with the Bucs after the future Hall of Famer elected to officially retire following the 2022 season. The current QB in Tampa Bay had things to say about what Brady brought to the locker room, and the Patriots and Buccaneers legend was not going down without firing back.
What did Brady and Mayfield say about each other? Here is more on the comments from both sides of the story.
Baker Mayfield-Tom Brady beef, explained
Mayfield made a recent appearance on the Casa De Klub podcast. The Buccaneers' QB discussed how Brady's approach and mentality impacted the rest of the Tampa Bay locker room.
"The building was a little bit different with Tom in there. Obviously, playing-wise, Tom is different," Mayfield said. He had everybody dialed in, high-strung environment, so I think everybody was pretty stressed out.
"They wanted me to come in, be myself, bring the joy back to football for guys who weren't having as much fun."
Those comments resulted in Brady taking a dig at Mayfield during the broadcast of Week 4's contest between Tampa Bay and Philadelphia. The Fox analyst pointed out the success that his style brought the franchise, including winning Super Bowl 55 over the Chiefs in the first of two seasons with the Bucs.
"I thought stressful was not having Super Bowl rings,'' Brady said. "This wasn’t daycare. … If I was going to have fun, I was going to Disneyland with my kids. There’s a way to approach this game and it’s with the right mindset to push teammates.''
After Brady put the current Tampa Bay QB on blast, Mayfield attempted to clear up his previous comments made on the podcast. Following the Buccaneers win over the Eagles, Mayfield told reporters his words "got taken out of context."
"It's just what [Brady] demanded of the guys, and that's the aura of Tom Brady. And that's what he did to bring a championship here," Mayfield said. "I think a lot of that got taken out of context, and none of it was personal by any means."
"Nothing personal, but yeah, talking before the game, he's obviously happy for me and he knows the guys, so he knows how much I enjoy throwing to Mike [Evans] and Chris [Godwin] [because] he got to do the same. It's fun to be able to talk about the same experience with a guy like that."
