Less than a week after six-time Pro Bowl guard Logan Mankins was shipped to the Buccaneers, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is still getting used to the newly minted void along New England's offensive line.
"I haven't really spoken to anybody about it, so I have my own personal feelings that are very personal to me," Brady told WEEI-FM on Tuesday, per ESPNBoston.com's Mike Reiss.
"I love Logan. Logan was a great friend of mine. Nobody stood for Patriots football more than him. ... I dealt with whatever feelings I had last week, but I've moved on. I have to move on, because that's what this team expects me to do."
Brady isn't doing cartwheels over seeing a premier blocker sent south, but the Patriots -- with Bill Belichick at the trigger -- owe much of their long run of success to unemotional team-building. Instead of holding on to an aging Mankins and his $10 million salary-cap number one year too long, New England moved him for value while it still could.
Brady, though, acknowledged that the business-end of the NFL isn't something he's warmed up to during his 15-year career.
"Absolutely not," he responded. "I'm a very person-to-person type of person, a very emotional person. I don't think those things have ever gotten easier for me. I don't think they ever will. But you have to come to grips with it also, and learn to deal with things in a mature way."
The Patriots will put their Mankins-free line to the test on Sunday against Cameron Wake and the pass rush of the Miami Dolphins.
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