DENVER -- New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has suffered tough losses throughout his career, but he ranked Sunday night's 30-24 overtime setback to the Denver Broncos near the top of his list.
"It was a very hard loss. I don't think I've ever been so pissed off after a loss," Brady said Monday morning on sports radio WEEI. "I think everyone felt the same way. Hopefully we can use it as motivation going forward."
Brady said he usually spends the flight home from road games preparing for his next opponent, but he didn't early Monday morning. Instead, he took time to digest the loss and tight end Rob Gronkowski's knee injury that led him to be carted off the field with 2 minutes, 49 seconds remaining in regulation.
"Tough game. This one hurts," Brady said. "I think the circumstances of the game, the circumstances of the situation that we were in -- having a good lead in the fourth quarter, then having a couple huge third downs that we made called back by penalty, then losing a player like Gronk in the fourth quarter, and then fighting back like we did to get it to overtime."
Brady said he thought Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib hooked receiver Brandon LaFell on the first play of overtime and defensive pass interference should have been called. The Patriots ended up punting after a three-and-out, with the Broncos scoring on their third offensive play on a 48-yard run.
"How it all played out, I guess I was just pretty pissed off, obviously the final outcome and how the last 15 to 20 minutes of the game played out," Brady said. "It's a tough way to lose a game, especially when we had some pretty great opportunities there throughout to close them out. For a myriad of reasons, we couldn't quite make the critical ones when we needed. When we did, it got called back or something like that.
"... You hate for it to come down to stuff like that, but there were a lot of plays last night that just didn't necessarily end up the way we would have hoped, and there are a lot of things we could have done better. I'm certainly not going to sit here and blame the officiating. Some days you get the calls; some days you don't. We're going to have to figure out what we need to do going forward so we don't get [penalties]."
During parts of the game, such as after Gronkowski was called for offensive pass interference late in the fourth quarter for a second time, Brady was seen yelling at referee Tony Corrente and members of Corrente's crew.
"We didn't get many last night. I don't know why or why not. You think they're looking at it, and they probably are," Brady said on WEEI. "Sometimes officials miss it, too, I totally understand that."
Brady said he was encouraged seeing Gronkowski on the flight home.
"He was in decent spirits, so that made me happy," Brady said. "They have some things they're going to have to check on, and we'll go from there."