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Nora Princiotti

Make no mistake, you’ll know when Tom Brady is yelling at you

Tom Brady yelled to the crowd before a game this season.Barry Chin/Globe Staff

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — It happens to respected coaches and to rookies. Referees and running backs, in moments big and small.

Getting yelled at by Tom Brady is a Patriots rite of passage.

Even Super Bowl MVPs aren’t spared.

In 2005, during the first Patriots-Eagles Super Bowl, New England was facing a third and long when wide receiver Deion Branch glanced back at Brady and immediately knew something was wrong.

“He gave me a look and I just looked back at him like, ‘No. We’re not doing that. I don’t think you really want to do this.’ It’s third and, like, 12. He gave me the look as if, ‘When I snap the ball I’m going to just throw it to you. I’m throwing you the ball.’

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“I just felt like, I felt deep down inside like, ‘Look, that’s just too far. It’s third and 12,’ something like that. And it was a 2-yard route. There wasn’t a chance I was going to get this first down. That Philly defense was very fast.”

Brady made the quick throw anyway. Branch wasn’t expecting it and ran too far. The ball came in behind him and hit his calf.

Branch knew what was coming next, though.

“Tito! What are you doing?” Brady bellowed. Brady used the nickname he’d given Branch when the receiver was a rookie in 2002, but there was no love in his voice in that moment.

As mild-mannered as Brady appears outside the lines, he’s as intense a competitor as there is on the field. As anyone who has played with the quarterback over the last 18 years knows, mistakes aren’t tolerated. A missed blitz pickup, running the wrong route, or a miss on a sight adjustment will be met with a verbal temper tantrum.

“You don’t want to get that earful,” running back James White said. “You want to be in the right spot.”

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Just ask wide receivers Julian Edelman or Danny Amendola, two of Brady’s best friends. Try Chad Ochocinco or Aaron Dobson. Backup quarterback Brian Hoyer had to restrain Brady from lunging at then-offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien in 2011. He screamed at current offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels during a Bills game this season — a shouting match Brady eventually apologized for during a news conference — and was used as a prime example of mounting tension in Foxborough in an ESPN report. A YouTube search for “Tom Brady yelling” returns tens of thousands of results.

But teammates say Brady’s eruptions are over quickly and that they are taken as a sign of belief that they can do better. He yells because he cares.

Branch, who was the MVP of Super Bowl XXXIX, took his tongue-lashing from Brady. Then the quarterback was consoling and encouraging him.

“I was like, ‘Tom. It’s third and 12,’ ” Branch responded. “He said, ‘I don’t care what the down and distance is. I’m trying to get you the ball because I know you can get that first down.’ ”

Brady’s intensity makes other players buy in, Branch said.

“That’s what you want from your quarterback, you know?” Branch said. “It’s the norm for that stuff to come from offensive linemen, or you see those type of things from defensive linemen, or a receiver or a running back. It’s really not the norm to see a lot of quarterbacks as fiery as Tom. But you have guys like him that show that passion, that intensity, and that [are] very intense about the game and trying to achieve something.

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“You love that, especially when it comes from your quarterback because he’s playing the world-renowned position and he’s the face of the NFL.”

Some rookies are sensitive to the berating at first, Branch said. For the most part, Patriots players have come to expect it. They take their quarterback’s words seriously, but they know Brady’s legendary intensity is as much about his personality as it is about whatever they’ve done wrong. Most laughed when asked about getting chewed out by the quarterback.

“Tom yells at me and I listen,” running back Brandon Bolden said. “He can be like, ‘Shut up.’ And I’m like, ‘All right, I’ll shut up.’ And then he leaves and I’ll start talking again.”

“I think you get an understanding of how much he cares,” wide receiver Chris Hogan said. “He cares a whole lot about this football team and winning football games. That’s why we put in so much time together on the field, off the field. So that he doesn’t have to yell at us.”

Most receivers, predictably, said running a poor route is the top thing to set off Brady. Perhaps equally predictably, former safety Rodney Harrison disagreed, saying lightheartedly that it’s “always the defense” that Brady blames when the offense messes up.

“He’s such a crybaby in practice. He is,” Harrison said. “I remember in a Super Bowl [practice], I picked him off, and, you know, I’m running, high-stepping, doing my little Deion [Sanders], and he was mad. He didn’t talk to me for three days. He’s yelling, screaming, cussing at me.

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“He’s such a crybaby because any time he doesn’t complete a pass he says, ‘Oh you guys are holding.’ And I asked Devin McCourty the same thing and he just starting laughing and he says, ‘Yeah, that’s Tom. He’s always screaming about holding and penalties and things like that.’

“Tom, he’s a very competitive guy, but we used to kick his butt in practice,” Harrison said. “That’s why I know how to defend him.”

Brady’s perfectionism applies to everyone. Special teams captain Matthew Slater doesn’t play much on offense, but that didn’t mean Brady held him to a lower standard, even as a rookie.

“I was in there, somehow I ended up in there with Tom,” Slater said. “I think I ran the wrong route, or I missed a sight adjust. I heard about it.”

Slater remembers standing on the field, staring into the screeching esophagus of a player he was a fan of before getting to the NFL.

“It was very surreal,” Slater said.

“Now when he yells at me it’s like a good thing. Like, OK, I need to get myself going.”

Brady blowups are not limited to big moments. As clearly as Branch remembers setting off Brady in the Super Bowl, he also remembers another game against the Eagles, during the regular season in 2011, that the Patriots had well in hand.

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“We clearly had the game won,” Branch said. “I mean this game was out of the picture [Patriots, 38-20]. It wasn’t close at all.”

Brady gave a hand signal, something he does all the time. But instead of flashing it quickly, he held it for several seconds. Brady would tell Branch later that he held it there because he could tell Branch was confused.

In reality, Branch was having an all-out brain freeze.

“I literally, like, froze up,” Branch said.

Brady still ran the play.

“I took off running, and I ran the wrong route,” Branch said. “But he threw the ball where I was supposed to be. And as I was going back to the huddle he was just like, ‘What are you doing? Tito! Run the route! What are you doing?’ ”

“Bro, I just had a brain freeze,” Branch said.

“Come on, Tito. I know,” Brady said, softening his tone. “We’ve just got to do better, man. And you know better than that.”

Just like that, it was over. Branch had been chastised, but he’d also been reminded that he had Brady’s trust.

“The extreme that he was at that one particular time, the level of extreme where he was at, he came down just that fast,” Branch said. “Because he knows, ‘OK, we’ve been playing this game together a long time.’ ”


Nora Princiotti can be reached at nora.princiotti@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @NoraPrinciotti.