Morning Briefing: Tom Brady, underdog?

Recently, The Times’ brain trust asked Mr. Peabody and Sherman to use the wayback machine to travel into the past and return with a former sports Page 2 feature that people loved: Morning Briefing. They successfully made it back yesterday, and we are proud to reintroduce the feature today. A compilation of items that you may have missed in the sports world, it will run Monday-Friday, and I’ll be your host throughout the festivities. So let’s get right to it.

Tom Brady puts tongue in cheek

After his team annihilated the Chargers on Sunday, 87-year-old New England quarterback Tom Brady was interviewed by Tracy Wolfson of CBS, who asked his thoughts on next weekend’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs. “It’ll be a good game. They’re a good team. We played them earlier this year. I know everyone thinks we suck and can’t win any games. We’ll see.”

Tom, you’ve got it all wrong. It’s not that everyone doesn’t think you can’t win, it’s that almost everyone doesn’t want you to. Come on, get it right next time.

The streak is over

Not only is Brady positioning his team as the underdog next week, the betting odds for the game against the Chiefs are out, and the Patriots are three-point underdogs. This ends at 67 a streak of consecutive starts (regular season and playoffs) by Brady where his team was favored. The last time Brady wasn’t the favorite was Sept. 20, 2015, at Buffalo, when the Patriots were two-point underdogs. New England won 40-32.

See Tom, even oddsmakers don’t want you to win.

Are you paying attention Dodgers?

Several websites are reporting that free-agent Bryce Harper was so impressive in a meeting with Philadelphia Phillies ownership and front office last week that the Phillies have turned their attention away from Manny Machado and want to sign Harper as soon as possible.

“We got to understand the man,” managing partner John Middleton told Philadelphia station ABC6. “We got to understand what he’d be like in the dugout, the clubhouse and the community. He and his wife are really an impressive young couple.”

Said general manager Matt Klentak: “It was really impressive to spend some time with him, get to know him better, answer his questions, and we got to ask some questions, learn about him, and I think that’s a really important step in any negotiation is kind of understanding what the other party is looking for. And now we’ll see where it takes us.”

For those of you worried that this means the Dodgers will lose out, relax. After all, they did just acquire a catcher who hit .194 last season. What more do you want?

Snow business

Kansas City Chiefs guard Jeff Allen has a special reward for a fan who got him going early for Saturday’s playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts.

On Sunday, Allen tweeted early that his car got stuck in the snow before the game and that a passerby named Dave stopped and helped him free his car. Dave did not know who Allen was and went on his way after the car was free. Allen asked his Twitter followers to help him track down the guy because he didn’t have any info about him other than his name.

A few hours later, Allen found Dave. But first, several Chiefs fans changed their Twitter name to Dave and tried to trick Allen. He didn’t fall for it. The real Dave is now in possession of two tickets to next weekend’s AFC championship game.

Now, please wait a moment while I ask my boss for a week off so I can follow Jared Goff all week in case he has car trouble.

houston.mitchell@latimes.com