Tom Brady responds to criticism for not high-fiving Jimmy Garoppolo

Jimmy Garoppolo had quite a nice moment late in the Patriots’ blowout loss at Kansas City.

The rookie quarterback made his NFL debut after Tom Brady was benched with New England trailing 41-7, and not only that, Garoppolo threw a touchdown pass on his first drive. Garoppolo couldn’t celebrate too much because of the score, but there had to be a lot of really great emotions inside of him. Many of his teammates understood it and most gave him high fives as he got to the bench. Brady never did.

Brady gave other teammates some high fives but not Garoppolo. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels sat between them on the bench, and the Boston Globe’s report noted that the two quarterbacks didn’t seem to speak to each other. And since we’ve seen other relationships like this sour in a hurry (John Elway/Tommy Maddox, Joe Montana/Steve Young, Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers come to mind) it seemed like something was amiss with the 37-year-old Brady and the guy who was drafted to presumably be his successor.

Brady addressed it on his WEEI radio show, via ESPN.com.

“I’m really not [aware of the cameras],” Brady said when asked about the criticism he has taken for not high-fiving Garoppolo, according to ESPN. “When we lose there’s really not a lot [of emotion] – even when we win I think it’s just important to not ride the roller coaster of emotions. You have to believe in your process. You have to believe in the things that you are doing to help the team win. I think you have to take the good with the bad.

“I was happy for Jimmy. I was happy for our team. We kept fighting at the end. That’s a good thing. The more good players we have, the better we will be as a team. So, I didn’t pay attention to any of those things. I was obviously disappointed that the outcome of the game was what it was. It’s been very frustrating all season the way that we have performed offensively. But we are trying to figure it out to become a better offense.”

Not sure that really answers it, but there it is.

Maybe this is being overblown, and Brady didn’t realize what happened or was too sick about the loss to think to congratulate his backup on a huge life moment (surely Brady remembers the first time he got in an NFL game, and his first touchdown, too). Brady doesn’t have any obligation to congratulate his backup, either. Favre memorably said it wasn’t his job to get Rodgers ready to play, and while it sounded cold, it’s also the absolute truth.

Whether Brady and Garoppolo are good buddies isn’t clear and it probably doesn’t matter anyway to the Patriots winning or losing games the rest of the season. But it’s a situation a lot of people will monitor after Monday night.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab