TAMPA, Fla. – Immediately after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 in Super Bowl LV on Sunday, Bucs full-back Tom Brady sent an apology to Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu for several verbal exchanges on the field, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
ESPN read the contents of the text aloud.
Brady apologizes to Mathieu for losing his composure in the heat of the moment, of which Mathieu said, “I have never really seen that side of him.”
During the game, Brady and Mathieu saved several times. At one point, Brady even chased him and came in his face.
Brady calls Mathieu the ‘ultimate rival’ in his apology and says he knows he has to match Mathieu’s intensity on Sunday.
Brady told Mathieu that he had been watching him since his days at LSU, and he praised Mathieu for his heart and called him an ‘incredible leader, champion and class performance’.
Brady also expressed his desire to personally apologize in the future. He said his outbursts at an emotional moment were in no way a reflection of his feelings towards Mathieu, of whom he spoke a lot during the week before the match.
Mathieu explained his side of the quarrel and said in a tweet that has since been deleted that Brady started the oral spit when he called Mathieu “something I will not repeat.”
“He’s clearly chasing me, but I got a flag,” Mathieu said in another deleted tweet.