Melissa DeRosa, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's top deputy, compared her boss Thursday to Nelson Rockefeller, FDR, Hugh Carey, and Tom Brady.

"This nation's political Tom Brady changed the way the game is played in New York,” DeRosa said at a Crain’s Business breakfast forum.

Brady, it should be noted, is widely reviled in New York, but it seemed the metaphor had more to do with Cuomo's success rate.

"He puts the ball in the end zone nearly every time he releases it," DeRosa said about her boss.

The secretary to the governor framed Cuomo's policy wins as a contrast to what she called New York's political newcomers, a thinly veiled reference to newly-elected progressive lawmakers like Bronx state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who recently incurred the administration's wrath after blasting a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser Cuomo held last month.

"We have $25,000 tickets? Are you kidding me? This is completely outrageous!" the Democratic lawmaker said.

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"Some in the party have chosen to meet anger with more anger, shouting with 240 characters into the internet," DeRosa said. "The governor believes in matching outrage with action. He believes that any ja----s can kick down a barn, but it takes a real leader to build one."

Some Albany lawmakers worry Biaggi and others will try to oust incumbent Democrats they see as too moderate, a similar dynamic to what's playing out nationally and one DeRosa compared to the Tea Party movement on the right.

"The scary thing that's happening right now is that you have Democrats in safe seats that are imposing their own beliefs and their own ideological purity tests on other Democrats," DeRosa said. "I think that it's dangerous, I think that it's counter-productive."

The Crain's Business forum also covered a range of other topics, including Cuomo's feud with Mayor Bill de Blasio, a conflict DeRosa said has worn away, even as she painted the mayor with a touch of paranoia.

"The mayor used to believe that the governor was the person that was secretly behind every door, ready to pounce, and that we were the reason that he wasn't getting mayoral control," DeRosa said. "Actually, it was the Senate Republicans."

Now that Republicans are gone from power, the conflicts are within the Democratic Party.

DeRosa, who grew up around politics, and whose father is still a prominent Albany lobbyist, deflected when asked if elected office might be in her future, saying only that she "can't think past tomorrow."