Getty Images
The Buccaneers were as little as a day away from potentially striking a deal with a free-agent quarterback when Tom Brady realized that it was time to play or get off the pot. So what would have happened if Tom Brady hadn’t unretired two weeks ago today (and, yes, it was only two weeks ago today)?
“We had started to uncover as many stones as we possibly could,” Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians told Steve Wyche of NFL Network at the league meetings in Florida. “We would’ve turned over every stone. . . . [G.M.] Jason [Licht] did his calls. We were in the midst of all that stuff when Tom decided to come back and thank God we could say, ‘No thanks, brother. We’re out of it.’”
Options included not just free agents (Teddy Bridgewater was Tampa’s Plan B to Brady in 2020) but trades for the likes of Deshaun Watson or Baker Mayfield. Brady realized that the Bucs would soon be forced to make a decision that would make it impossible for him to come back to Tampa in 2022. Given the team’s apparent reluctance to trade him or let him walk away to another team, Brady realized that, if he was going to play this year, he needed to stay where he was.
As to the possibility of Brady wanting to play elsewhere, Arians downplayed and dismissed such chatter — as he always does to reports that don’t mesh with his preferred viewpoints.
“I have no clue where it comes from,” Arians said. “Somebody’s got to write a story every day about something. Tom and I have a great relationship. Even during the retirement: ‘Where you at?’ ‘I’m in Italy.’ ‘How’s it going?’ ‘Got the kids over here.’ You know, just checking on him. I can’t get him back on the golf course because he’s traveling too much, so I can’t win enough money off of him.”
But the truth is that the Dolphins were exploring a Tom Brady/Sean Payton package deal, and the reality is that the Dolphins wouldn’t have been thinking about it if Brady wasn’t at least on board with the theoretical possibility of it.
Ultimately, why did Brady “retire” for 40 days? His father has blamed it on the media reporting that he’d be retiring. Which makes no sense.
What makes sense is that Brady wanted to take a step back and consider his options — all options — before making a decision about 2022. He decided that his best decision was to stay in Tampa. Next year, he’ll make another decision, based on all relevant facts and circumstances at that time.
