Brady Dismisses Burress Prediction

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has laughed off Plaxico Burress's prediction that the New York Giants will beat the Pats 23-17 in Sunday's Super Bowl, mocking the Giants wide receiver for picking such alow score. "We're only going to score 17 points?" Brady chuckled at the Patriots' morning press conference. "OK. Is Plax playing defense? I wish he had said 45-42 and gave us a little credit for scoring more points."

Delivered light-heartedly, Brady's words were poignant nevertheless. The Patriots are yet to be held to less than 20 points by any opponent this season, and put up nearly twice that number on the way to a 38-35 win over the Giants when the two teams met in the last game of the regular season on December 30. They averaged just over 36.8 points per game in the regular season on the way to an NFL-record 589 points. They haven't been held to 17 or less since Miami shut them out during a 21-0 upset at Dolphin stadium on December 10, 2006.

"I know they have confidence. They should have confidence," Brady said. "They are the NFC champions. But I learned a lesson early in my career: no matter what you say during the week - and God knows we say a lot this week - we're going to be focused on going out and winning this game. We're confident, but I don't think we share our thoughts with everybody."

Burress has already admitted that the prediction - first made on Monday - was based on nothing more than the fact he used to wear the No23 shirt when playing basketball in college, and now wears No17 shirt for the Giants, though he remains confident his team will win.

Arriving over half an hour late for the Giants' press conference later in the morning, he claimed to be surprised that people were even still discussing it. "I don't understand what the fuss is about," he said. "Nobody wants to lose. All this is entertainment. It's sports, and sports are entertainment. So 23-17 is the prediction I made, but the game still has to be played."

Burress, who may face a fine for his tardiness - which he explained by saying he had not seen his one-year-old son for several days and wanted to spend time with him over breakfast - was also at pains to insist he wasn't trying to disrespect the Patriots. "I'm not taking anything away from what those guys accomplished," he insisted. "They set all the records you could possibly imagine. The numbers don't lie about what they have done."

Giants coach Tom Coughlin has been reluctant to discuss Burress's prediction from the outset, and would go no further than to say he would talk to Burress "in a private way" at a later point.