Former Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel tells great story about wrestling Tom Brady originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The New England Patriots of the 2000s won a lot of games and three Super Bowls. These guys are focused on winning, but they also have a lot of fun and get up to a lot of mischief, which makes the story so great.
Former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady recently had famous boxer Canelo Alvarez on his podcast, and one of the topics that came up was which fighter former teammate Brady would like to fight. Of course, Brady jokingly mentioned Matt Cassel.
“Matt is very strong. He came to the Patriots in the offseason and we have a great relationship,” Brady said. “We laugh every day. Then we started wrestling and he was so strong. He threw me to the ground and he was on top of me and I couldn’t move. Rodney Harrison came up and said, ‘Matt, if you hurt him , I’m going to kill you. That was the last day Matt lay on top of me wrestling.”
We had to know Cassel’s take on the story, so Phil Perry asked him about it on the latest episode of NBC Sports Boston Next Shoot Podcast.
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“I know I always have a face to punch, but at the same time, I’m sure he’s still thinking about this day,” Cassel said. “Twenty years after it happened, or however long it’s been, it probably wasn’t that long, but 15 years after the fact, he still remembers me body-slamming him on the field and basically treating him like my little brother, and that makes me feel like very good.
“It makes me proud because he understands, hey, big boy, you better not mess with me, even though Rodney Harrison, those guys they did run over, they were very warm to me. It’s unbelievable , because we’re super competitive.” We work out every day and the testosterone is flowing. After we finished training, he started joking with me, and like I said, we always had childish humor, messing with each other, saying bad things to each other. Then he started wrestling and I was like, oh, I’m in. I like wrestling. I grew up with my brother and I would love to participate in this. …I just have an advantage. I had a big caboose at that time. I used to do 315 rep squats like this. I was like, oh, yeah. And then I pushed him to the ground and held him down like a you know little thing. I just said, ‘What’s wrong? Do you want some of this? ‘”
It was all fun until Rodney Harrison showed up, and the veteran safety wasn’t kidding.
“But then Rodney Harrison came running up and he was so worried that I was really going to hurt Brady and he said, man, get off him right now and I’m going to punch you in the face,” Cassell said. “He’s like Cassel, number one, if you hurt Brady, you’re going to get cut tomorrow. Number two, if you hurt Brady, we’re all going to kick you out. I was like, well said . Good point. Everything’s fine, everything’s fine. Well, it’s his fault. It’s his fault, but I had to put him in his place.”
Harrison isn’t the only veteran to come to Brady’s defense.
“Well, it wasn’t just Rodney, it was Richard Seymour,” Cassell explained. “So two guys came to me. Because I wanted to ask, ‘Do you want some?’ I felt like a terrible person at that point, but if you’re facing Rodney Harrison and Richard Seymour, the situation It was totally different. So I said, yes, sir. Yes, sir. I’ll get off, I’ll get off. Yeah, it’s definitely more than I want to bite off.”
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