Super Bowl pregame highlights: Bud Grant calls Vince Lombardi a 'tyrant'
Hall of Fame Minnesota Vikings coach Bud Grant, now 90 and working as a consultant for the Vikings, was asked in a pregame interview with NBC on Sunday about his rocky relationship with Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, whose name is now on the NFL's championship trophy.
"Vince didn't get along with a lot of people, and players will tell you that," Grant told NBC. "Now, I'm not cutting his tires. I mean, he's a great coach. But he's a tyrant."
Grant guided the Vikings to 168 victories over 18 seasons as coach, including four Super Bowls. But he never won a championship with Minnesota.
When asked how he wears those defeats, Grant simply raised his hand, revealing a large blue ring.
"A Hall of Fame ring," he said.
Grant explains "Viking Formation"
Grant's Vikings teams were best known for their discipline, including the installment of the "Vikings Formation," a precise way in which players stood during the national anthem.
Under Grant's direction, players stood still in a straight line along the sideline. They held their helmets in their right hands with the chinstraps tucked inside. It was something they actually practiced every year at training camp, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
After a season in which protests during the national anthem became a significant theme, Grant was asked why he felt the "Vikings Formation" was so important.
"I was raised during the war," he told NBC's Michelle Tafoya, while fighting back tears. "I had a lot of friends that got killed in that war. It's just important to me, that we show respect to those people who paid the ultimate price. It's the least I could do. It's not much. But that's all I could do."
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Kraft: 'When you're successful, you become a target'
In an interview that aired before Sunday's game, NBC broadcaster Al Michaels asked Patriots owner Robert Kraft about how the organization has overcome "distractions" over his tenure as owner, both on and off the field.
"We've worked very hard as an organization to keep it all together, behind closed doors," Kraft said. "When you're successful, you become a target. Jealousy and envy are incurable diseases, and I hope we keep making them feel that because we're winning."
The Patriots have won five Super Bowl titles since 2000, but they've also found themselves in the middle of controversy, including the 2007 "Spygate" incident and "Deflategate," which spanned parts of 2015 and 2016. More recently, there have been reports of friction between quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick, centering around Brady's personal trainer, Alex Guerrero.
Brady says Michael Jordan on 'different level'
Brady said he will never see himself in the same light as Michael Jordan, even if he were to match Jordan's six championships with a win against the Philadelphia Eagles.
"He's at a different level to me," Brady told Westwood One radio before Sunday's game. "When you're a kid, and you're watching Michael Jordan — the most incredible athlete I've ever seen — I could never see myself that way."
Brady was asked a similar question in a sitdown with NBC, with anchor Dan Patrick asking the 40-year-old if he would belong in the same conversation as Jordan with a sixth title, or if that's a personal goal for him.
"It's not stuff I think about very often," Brady said. "I mean, when I was a kid, Michael Jordan was everything. I had his posters on my wall. I had Joe Montana and Steve Young, and I loved baseball. Don Mattingly and Wade Boggs — those guys, there's a special place for them. I don't think I could ever be compared to them, just because of the way I see them in my eyes."
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