Tom Brady grew up in the San Francisco area as a huge 49ers fan. An aspiring quarterback, Brady’s idol was 49ers signal caller Joe Montana, a player Brady is now being compared to as the best quarterback of all-time.

Brady spoke about what it’s like to have another shot at winning a Super Bowl ring and his admiration for Montana.

“I remember when I was little and the San Francisco 49ers were in the Super Bowl and to now get to play in these games has been a great eight years of my life,” Brady said. “As a kid growing up, I idolized Joe [Montana] and Steve [Young]. Those guys were the best. Joe Montana is the greatest of all-time and he always will be.”

Bill Belichick addressed the media as well on Sunday night. As usual, the Patriots coach didn’t divulge much information but he did address the team’s rally before leaving for Arizona.

“It was a great morning,” Belichick said. “We had a little light snow coming down, so it was kind of a romantic setting. It was a great send off. We’re glad to have them as our fans.”

Junior Seau stole the show at the rally, charging up the crowd. The veteran was named a team captain, despite only being in his second season with the Patriots. Belichick said Seau received the same number of votes from offensive and defensive players, a sign of how well respected Seau is by his teammates.

Shortly after arriving in Scottsdale, AZ, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady met with the media. The main topic? Brady’s injured ankle. But Brady insisted he’ll be ready to go on Sunday and that it will take a lot more than a sore ankle to keep him out of the Super Bowl (Listening LT?).

“What did coach say?” Brady countered back when first asked about his ankle. “It’s feeling good. It’s feeling good. I’ll be ready to go.”

Brady admitted that he injured the ankle in the third quarter of the AFC Championship Game against the Chargers. This is contrary to a report by ESPN’s Ron Jaworski who claimed he watched every play of the game at least 10 times and believed Brady hurt the ankle on a pass attempt to Randy Moss in the first quarter. Perhaps Jaws needs to watch the film another 10 times.

“The injury shouldn’t affect my play,” Brady said. “I can’t run anyway, so I don’t think it will bother me. It won’t keep me out of this game. It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than an ankle.”

Brady talked about this being a business trip for the Patriots, saying New England came down here to do a job, not experience all the extracurricular stuff going on during Super Bowl week.

“This isn’t the year to come down and experience the Super Bowl parties and everything this city has to offer,” Brady said. “I’m sure it will be a hell of a lot of fun, just not for us…The most important thing to us is to accumulate Super Bowl rings. I already have three and seven fingers left, so I’ll be working my butt off to get some more.”

The Giants Osi Umenyiora called Patriots left tackle Matt Light dirty last week, saying Light did things in the first matchup well after the whistle blew. Brady defended his teammate on Sunday.

“Matt is dirty. He’s not very clean,” Brady said in reference to Light’s physical appearance. “I don’t think he’s really a dirty player. Football is a tough game and sometimes things go on after the whistle blows but I don’t think that happens with Matt. Maybe Rodney, but not with Matt.”

Arrived at the Patriots team headquarters on Saturday, greeted by sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-60s. Myself, Jana Gauthier our web services manager and Chris Ferreira, Patriots.com’s webmaster, came early to prepare for the team’s arrival today around 5:00 pm local time. By the way, local time is two hours behind Eastern time. Whenever I refer to a time from now on, I’ll be using the local time so be sure to do your own conversion wherever in the world you might be logging in from.

 W’ere going to be running tests around noon today to make sure we’re all set to bring you the live press conferences that begin at 5:45. We’re doing something with them that no other website has ever done so make sure to tune in then. One hint, if you usually bypass the Patriots.com splash page by bookmarking the homepage, don’t. Go right to www.patriots.com for the full effect.

Enough previews. Right now it’s raining in Scottsdale where the Patriots hotel is located. Can you believe it? Rain in the desert. The locals are telling me this is the rainy season but that only means it rains once every three weeks or so. So it figures this is the week.

It’s a mad scramble right now at the hotel. The Patriots set-up crew is making sure everything’s in place when the team arrives. That means setting up Internet connectivity, TVs, work space, printers, phones, food service, rooms, rental cars – and that’s just for Paul Perillo.

More to come today. I’ll let you know how all our testing went around 1pm or so.

The snow has done nothing to discourage Patriots Nation. Fans are turning out in droves as we speak with cars lining Route 1 as if it were the really early stages of game day. I noticed a couple of hearty souls (and props to them for letting me out of the gas station parking lot into the line of traffic, by the way) wearing shoulder pads and with faces painted. I guess it’s good to be a Patriots fan right now if you have the kind of time to devote that kind of energy.