Julian Edelman was up for sharing on Monday night’s installment of the “Manningcast,” spilling secrets about bestie Tom Brady’s vocabulary.
After joining hosts Peyton and Eli Manning virtually in the fourth quarter of the Buccaneers and Giants game, the former Patriots receiver, 35, was asked to dissect a conversation on the Tampa Bay sideline between his old teammates, Brady and Rob Gronkowski.
“I guarantee Gronk’s saying like, ‘Yo Tom, I don’t think I’m like quite ready, my lungs hurt a little bit, I need like two more days of practice and I’ll be there babe,'” Edelman said, referencing Gronkowski’s recent injury, in which he sustained multiple rib fractures and a punctured lung in a Week 3.
Edelman then speculated that Brady’s response would be along the lines of, “‘Babe, I thought you did well today. We got to keep it going, we gotta get better.” Edelman then called Brady the “ultimate confidence guy.”
When Eli pressed Edelman about the term “babe,” the now-retired receiver added, “Lot of babes, TB’s a babe guy.”
It appears Edelman, who played 11 seasons with Brady in New England, wasn’t the only Patriot that may have been on the receiving end of the quarterback’s term of endearment.
Leading up to Super Bowl 46 against the Giants in 2012, an anonymous Patriots player recounted to ESPN that Brady liked to use the word “babe.”
“He always kind of calls guys ‘Babe,'” the teammate said. “I was confused [at first]. I was like, ‘Did he just call me babe?’ But he kind of talks to guys like that, like, ‘Hey, babe.’ It’s the California boy in him, I guess.”
Edelman’s reveal Monday, however, appeared to be news to golfer Phil Mickelson, who quipped on Twitter that he thought Brady reserved “babe” specifically for him.
“Found out on the Manningcast that TB’s a ‘babe’ guy. The reason this is so disappointing is he called me babe when we were partners in The Match and I thought I was the only one. Now to find out he calls everyone babe really crushes my heart,” Mickelson wrote, noting their partnership at “The Match” both this year and last.
Based on the outcome of Monday’s game, in which the Buccaneers snapped a two-game losing streak by defeating the Giants, 30-10, it’s likely Gronkowski may not have been the only Tampa Bay player getting a “babe” nod from Brady.