Bengals Players Take Digs at Tom Brady After Impressive Comeback Win: 'The Future's Now, Old Man'

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Tom Brady called the Bengals' defense "fairly tough" last week — and it seems that they took that slight quite personally.

Following the Buccaneers' tough loss to Cincinnati on Sunday, Bengals players Eli Apple and B.J. Hill took the opportunity to remind Brady of the comments he made on his SiriusXM podcast Let's Go! with Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald and Jim Gray the week prior.

"The future's now, old man," Apple said on his way from the field to the locker room postgame, according to Yahoo Sports.

"We're fairly tough on defense," Hill added, according to the outlet. "Remember that, alright?"

Both players continued to repeat Brady's word choice of "fair" throughout their postgame media sessions. "Our fairly tough defense came in and played our butts off in the second half," Hill told reporters of the victory.

"[Brady] was fairly okay, but not good enough to win," said Apple in a video shared by Cincinnati reporter Olivia Ray.

Phillip Faraone/FilmMagic; Taylor Hill/WireImage

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Paul Dehner Jr., who covers the Bengals for The Athletic, said "the comment struck a chord" via Twitter.

Brady's Buccaneers were in control for the first half of Sunday's matchup, but the Bengals' defense kicked into high gear to take over the game after halftime.

The Tampa Bay quarterback was responsible for four turnovers in the game, which helped the Bengals pull ahead.

In the end, Cincinnati defeated Tampa Bay 34-23 to advance to 10-4 on the season. Brady and the Buccaneers are at 6-8 this season, which marks Brady's first-ever season with eight losses.

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The week before Sunday's loss to Cincinnati, Brady's Bucs were blown out by the San Francisco 49ers. The quarterback said he was so upset that he almost forgot to greet the family he had in the arena.

"We got our ass kicked," Brady said of the blowout defeat in the Bay Area, where Brady grew up. The 35-7 defeat had the NFL star so distraught that his family's presence at the game — around 100 friends and family members had come to see him play — slipped his mind.

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Brady revealed, "I was walking from the locker room to the bus — a kind of long walk of 500 yards or so — and just as I got to the bus the woman who I was with said, 'Hey, didn't you want to see your family?'"

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"So I turned around and walked back," said Brady, who was surprised that some of his family had stayed through the loss. "And at least after the game, I got to see my sisters, nieces and some cousins. My parents left in the third quarter, thankfully, to get home."

As it stands, Brady's Buccaneers are below .500, which he said "feels terrible" at this point in the season. "I just think there's an intense level of urgency that everyone's gotta feel. And you got four games left in the season and everything's ahead of us. We're below .500. That feels horrible, the way that we lost yesterday."