TB12 didn't make Tony Dungy's top five, so, of course, 锘Tom Brady锘 took to Twitter to zing back.
Having previously said he ranked Brady as the sixth-toughest quarterback for him to coach against, Dungy defended the choice on the Shannon Sharpe Podcast with an explanation and Brady responded via Twitter with a scoreboard-esque retort.
"I'm never putting Tom Brady ahead of Peyton Manning, so the best he can is No. 2. Cause Peyton was my guy,"聽Dungy began when Sharpe asked him for an explanation. "Who I put ahead of Tom Brady: Aaron Rodgers, John Elway, Steve Young, guys who could move. Not to say Tom wasn't great, but that extra dimension meant something to me."
While Dungy's ranking was impacted by Brady's legs, the longtime former Patriots quarterback and current Buccaneers QB let his fingers do the talking when he tweeted a reply.
Boom! Scoreboard via banner pic.
"I was just having fun. I was only referring to him as the Indy head coach, not as the Bucs head coach," Brady said when asked about his tweet. "So it was nothing personal. Coach Dungy knows I love him. I was just giving him a little grief..."
"He gave me a little grief, I gave him a little grief. It was all in good fun."
Brady won six Super Bowls with the Patriots and during New England's historic run of AFC supremacy, the Colts with Dungy and Manning were their archrivals.
Over his career, Brady is 15-4 against the Colts, including a 4-1 postseason showing.
However, against Dungy-coached Indianapolis squads, Brady was just 5-3 and 2-1 in the playoffs.
And also of note is that while the Patriots did pummel the Colts, 45-7, in the 2014 AFC Championship Game en route to defeating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, Dungy wasn't the coach then. He hadn't been since 2008.
But one should never let facts get in the way of a good comeback.