After a "long seven months for everybody," New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said on Sunday that he hopes to put the Deflate-Gate scandal behind him and get back to playing football.
In his first media appearance since a federal judge threw out his four-game suspension on Thursday, Brady resolutely refused to discuss the dispute in which the National Football League accused him of having conspired to let air out of footballs before a playoff game in January.
The Patriots won the game and went on to win the Super Bowl.
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"Obviously, I have a lot of personal feelings, but I really don't care to share many of those," Brady told reporters in Foxboro, Massachusetts.
"I really care to think about what I need to do going forward" to prepare fort Thursday's season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Brady wouldn't even talk about say whether he'd taken time to talk to his alleged co-conspirators, former Patriots equipment staffers John Jastremki and Jim McNally, saying only that they'd been "put through a lot."
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Brady, who was allowed to play in preseason practice games, said he'd kept preparing for the new season by "compartmentalizing things and dealing with things [only] when they're really kind of at the forefront."
"I think I've dealt with different situations in my life," he said. "You've got to always figure out a way to overcome different obstacles you face, and part of it is being mentally tough."
"We've got a lot of guys in this locker room who worked really hard to get to this point, and so have I," he said. "I'm excited to be able to go out there and do it."
