Smith is unknown to Patriots

The Patriots said they never would make a prediction like Anthony Smith’s.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — The New England Patriots have their own guarantee: They’d never guarantee a victory like Pittsburgh’s Anthony Smith did.

Some of them can’t even guarantee they’d recognize him.

“I know Aaron Smith,” Patriots defensive end Ty Warren said Thursday. “I don’t know Anthony Smith.”

Aaron Smith is in his ninth season with the Steelers, a standout defensive end who made the 2005 Pro Bowl and will be pressuring Tom Brady Sunday when the NFL’s best team meets the league’s top-rated defense.

Anthony Smith is a free safety in his second pro season and starting only because Ryan Clark’s season ended in late October with an inflamed spleen that was removed last month.

“I didn’t know who he was until we started preparing for them,” Tom Brady said.

Any Patriots player who guaranteed a victory would be guaranteed one thing: sharp tongue-lashings from his teammates and coach Bill Belichick.

“That wouldn’t happen in this locker room. It just wouldn’t,” Junior Seau said. “We won’t allow it. We don’t talk. What we try to do is just work every day and build for tomorrow. That’s all we do.”

He knows teams could use such pronouncements as bulletin-board material to provide extra motivation.

But Belichick suggested that wasn’t part of his pre-game plan.

“We can sit around and put a bunch of stuff up on a board and write stuff down on paper and all of that,” he said. “I think in the end it comes down to whether you can outplay the other team on Sunday or not outplay them. On a priority basis, that’s what our priority is, trying to prepare well and play well.”

As usual, his attitude was the players’ attitude. They reacted calmly to Smith’s remarks.

Linebacker Mike Vrabel: “I don’t think that prediction’s going to have much bearing on the outcome.”

Running back Heath Evans: “I don’t see why anyone’s comments outside of our head coaches and our position coaches should affect how we do things.”

Brady: “Well done is better than well said. That’s been the motto of the team.”