Sports

Brady: Patriots will stay on ‘Way’

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Tom Brady insists The Patriot Way is alive and well, despite Aaron Hernandez rocking the franchise to its core.

A day after Patriots coach Bill Belichick ended his silence on the sensational Hernandez murder case, New England’s iconic quarterback called the situation “tragic,” but defended his team’s reputation.

Asked at an interview session here if he thinks the famed Patriot Way still exists, Brady was resolute.

“To win football games and represent the community? No question,” Brady told a throng of reporters in the shadow of Gillette Stadium while his former teammate sat in jail not far away on murder and gun charges.

“Everyone who has played here has played a part of what the New England Patriots are all about,” Brady continued. “We realize that in light of the recent situation that those things get overshadowed. We have to work hard to kind of reestablish what we’re all about.”

Brady spoke, along with fellow captains Vince Wilfork, Devin McCourty and Jerod Mayo, in advance of the start of training camp this morning. All of them tried to follow the Belichick marching order to not discuss Hernandez out of respect for the legal case.

Brady said he got along well with Hernandez, despite tape surfacing recently of him telling Tim Tebow — now his teammate — after a 2011 game in Denver, Hernandez was “a lot to handle.”

“I typically have great relationships with all my teammates, so I’m hopefully pretty easy to get along with,” Brady said when asked how he felt about Hernandez. “I think that’s pretty much all I have to say.”

Brady declined comment when asked if Hernandez had reached out to him or if the two had any contact since the former Patriots tight end was implicated in the June 17 murder of friend Odin Lloyd and very publicly arrested June 26 at Hernandez’s home in North Attleborough, Ma.

Brady was reluctant to share his initial reaction to the charges against Hernandez except to say he has “moved forward.”

“I’m sure [the reaction was] probably like everyone else’s,” Brady said. “It was six weeks ago, so it’s hard to remember the exact emotion I felt, but it’s probably what everyone else here felt.”

Brady stressed how much he trusts his team’s locker room now that Hernandez — whose character was in question since before the Patriots gambled a fourth-round pick on him in 2010 — has been removed from the equation.

“I never have to worry about Vince [Wilfork], I never have to worry about Jerod [Mayo], I never have to worry about Devin [McCourty] or [special-teamer] Matthew Slater, what their level of preparation is going to be,” Brady said.

Brady claimed the Hernandez case won’t be a distraction to him, but Wilfork wouldn’t say the same for the Patriots as a whole.

“It’s going to test this team’s chemistry,” Wilfork said. “It’s going to test everyone that’s in this locker room, individually and as a team. It’s going to test to see how important football is to us.

“At the end of the day, the ball is going to continue to roll and the last thing we want to do is be stuck behind the ball. We have to try to stay above it.”