CLEVELAND — Tom Brady to Roger Goodell: Deflate this!
Brady’s return from his four-game Deflategate suspension went exactly as everyone thought it would as the Patriots star treated the poor, hapless Browns like 53 Goodells in a 33-13 whipping Sunday afternoon.
Showing no rust whatsoever, Brady threw for 406 yards and three touchdowns in just 3 ¹/₂ quarters while being serenaded with “Brady! Brady!” chants by the throng of traveling New England fans who flooded FirstEnergy Stadium.
A fired-up Brady led the Patriots out of the tunnel before the game, then methodically picked apart winless Cleveland in a performance that was vintage Brady in almost every way while improving them to 4-1.
But if Brady held a grudge against the commissioner, he wasn’t going to say it afterward. He stuck with his typically self-critical, aw-shucks demeanor with the media in a packed postgame news conference.
“What did I miss? Everything,” Brady said. “I think being with my teammates and playing with them and to celebrate with them. It’s just fun to run out there and play. It’s been a fun week getting ready to play and back to what I love to do. And 4-1 is a pretty good place to be right now.”
Brady wouldn’t even say he played angry, even though his pregame body language and screams said as much.
“This isn’t the time for me to reflect,” Brady said.
Making use of the downright lethal tight-end duo of Rob Gronkowski and ex-Giant Martellus Bennett that will keep NFL defensive coordinators up at night, Brady completed 13 of his first 15 passes — and both of the incompletions were drops.
Gronkowski had been ailing the first four weeks but looked energized by Brady’s return, catching five passes for 109 yards, while three of Bennett’s six receptions (for 67 yards) ended in TDs.
As if teams won’t have enough to worry about with this New England offense, Brady also showed that free-agent slot receiver Chris Hogan will be one of his weapons of choice. A former Bill, Hogan had four catches for a team-leading 114 yards.
“That’s his first game back and he goes [for] 406 [yards],” Patriots wideout Julian Edelman said of Brady, who finished 28-for-40 passing. “That’s pretty special.”
What little chance the Browns had of avoiding an 0-5 start went out the window when rookie quarterback Cody Kessler suffered a rib injury on Cleveland’s third series (a play that ended in a safety, of course) and exited for perpetual journeyman Charlie Whitehurst.
Whitehurst also left briefly with a leg injury in the second half, giving way to Terrelle Pryor before returning. Cleveland has now lost its top three quarterbacks — Robert Griffin III, Josh McCown and Kessler — to injury in just the first five weeks of the season.
“Everybody was excited, everybody was amped up,” Gronkowski said. “Tom always brings the ampness to the table.”
Told that “ampness” isn’t a word, Gronkowski said: “I don’t know, man. I just say it.”
Cleveland actually kept this one close for a quarter before Brady found Bennett for Bennett’s second TD early in the second to make it 23-7. Everything after that was purely The Brady Show.
Brady even carried the ball, scrambling twice for 14 yards, before giving way to Jimmy Garoppolo — who had gone 2-0 as the starter during Brady’s suspension until suffering a shoulder injury in Week 2 — with 6:02 left in the game.
“I mean, it’s Tom Brady,” Edelman said. “So you don’t expect anything less.”
Asked by The Post what he would say to people who think Deflategate will go down as a stain on his otherwise impeccable career, Brady demurred.
“I’m just trying to move on,” he said.
But while Edelman and Brady and the other Patriots kept it low-key in the locker room, Edelman gave a hint of their true feelings with a postgame tweet seemingly directed right at the commissioner.
Writing “welcome back,” Edelman posted a cartoon graphic of Brady screaming. At the bottom of the graphic was a single hashtag: “#FREEDOM.”