Seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady has lashed out at NFL fans who feel he wasn’t tough during his playing days.

Tom Brady is the most successful player in league history and, apart from his seven rings, earned several personal accolades. However, some fans are of the view that he was a “soft” quarterback throughout his 20-year career.

The former star QB has a very different opinion of himself, however, and has dropped some knowledge on his critics, pointing out that he got up every time after getting hit as he never wanted to give a defensive player the satisfaction of laying him out.

“Everyone thinks I was a p–sy out there. I took every single [hit] and got my ass up,” he said on his ‘Let’s Go!’ podcast this week. “I never wanted a defensive player saying ‘I knocked the s–t out of him and he didn’t get up’ so I made sure I got up.”

Brady suffered just one major injury during his playing days, tearing his ACL after getting hit by former safety Bernard Pollard in the Patriots’ opening game in 2008.

Perhaps the fact that he managed to remain mostly injury-free over such an extended period worked against him in the view of some fans. But we imagine toughness is the last thing that comes to mind when he looks at his seven rings and other awards.