The "as mild as it was" qualifier was used to convey that it is well understood that the Bell comment was not jarring. And true, he did add that last sentence.I don't think there was any smack talk in what Bell said. He followed up, paraphrasing, "we feel like we can beat anyone" with "it will take our best game, it will take better than our A game to beat NE".
Maybe "smack" was the wrong word. The point was and remains that the coach said to say nothing and then Bell said a more than nothing. Having lived with the Stepford Patriots all these years, I just found that he said anything of that nature immediately after Tomlin's comment to be a little unusual.