There’s not much lost love between the New England Patriots and their former running back Dion Lewis, now a standout player for the Tennessee Titans.
Lewis famously called the Patriots “cheap” after they decided he was expendable enough not to re-sign for the 2018 season. (RELATED: Patriots Trade For Superstar Receiver. Here’s What We Know)
“Hell yeah it’s personal,” Lewis said of the first matchup with his former team Sunday. “That’s what happens when you go cheap. You get your ass kicked.”
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Lewis was scooped up by the Titans in March for a four-year, $20 million contract with an additional $3 million in incentives. Not too shabby, especially after the 34-1o beating the Titans delivered to New England. But his fighting words made their way all the way up to Tom Brady, who shrugged off his “cheap” comments during his weekly appearance Monday morning on WEEI.
“It’s an emotional thing. I think people have different emotional feelings,” Brady told WEEI.
He continued:
Dion had a great career here. It’s hard to see great players go and I know it’s not the first time it’s happened, it has happened to a lot of guys. I am sure when they go to different places they want to beat us, absolutely. I can understand that emotion. We’ve had guys come from other teams and they have wanted to beat that team. It’s just part of the sport.
But Brady doesn’t seem to be sweating the loss too much.
“I give them credit, they beat us. When you win, you can say a lot of things. That is the reality of winning. We’ll just take our lumps and try and learn from them. And come out here and do a lot better job the next six weeks,” he said.
As it stands now, the Patriots are still in control of the AFC North, and they take their losses seriously. You can almost bet their bye week isn’t going to be filled with much rest.