Tom Brady Has Leverage
December 6th, 2020
“I’m with ya’ Bruce!”
At the end of the day, the NFL is a business. So keep that foremost in your mind when you read the eye-opening piece by a man who knows business.
That would be the creator, curator and overall guru of Pro Football Talk, the great Mike Florio.
No one, and Joe means no one, has his ear to the ground and a finger on the pulse of what is going on behind the scenes in NFL boardrooms and steakhouses and cigar bars like Florio.
And Florio had a very interesting piece yesterday that involves park-violating, home-invading, NFLPA-ignoring, down-forgetting, jet-ski-losing, handshake-stiffing Bucs quarterback Tom Brady, possibly Bucs coach Bucco Bruce Arians and certainly Team Glazer.
Based on circumstances out of everyone’s control, including those at One Buc Palace, The Sickness robbed Team Glazer of chances to rake in millions and further benefit from their investment in Brady. The Sickness prevented the Bucs from selling hundreds of thousands of tickets to home games, plus gear, parking and concession revenues, etc.
With a vaccine for The Sickness coming shortly, it is reasonable to believe the Den of Depression could be full next year if the vaccine proves quickly successful and all goes well, who knows? And a good chunk of those seats will be filled by folks willing to pay big money to see Brady with the Bucs.
Florio believes, motivated by finances of course, the 2020 goal of those who have posh offices on the top floor of One Buc Palace is to see to it that Brady returns for 2021.
Playoffs this year? That would be nice but not as nice as Brady playing in Tampa next year.
There’s been a growing sense in league circles in recent weeks that Buccaneers ownership views getting Brady back for a second season as a critical piece of their financial picture. The pandemic kept the Buccaneers from selling all tickets for the first time in a very long time. By next year, the public-health crisis likely will have subsided to the point that will allow the Bucs to open the floodgates again.
The question is whether Brady will be part of the team. Although he’s said nothing publicly to suggest he’s thinking about retiring or trying to play elsewhere in 2021, he said nothing publicly in 2019 about leaving New England, either. With dramatically reduced media access to practice and locker rooms, it’s much harder to get the kind of inside information that could shed light on his plans, and his camp hasn’t been leaking anything to the usual media suspects about whether Brady does or doesn’t fully intend to play in Tampa next year.
He’s technically under contract to the Bucs for next season, but nothing stops him from asking to be released. Brady also could easily retire until he’s released or traded for peanuts; since he received no signing bonus, he’d owe the team none of the $25 million he received in 2020.
So what does this mean outside of the obvious? Well, this means Brady has massive and possibly unprecedented leverage.
(Which may explain why the Bucs capitulated, signing Antonio Brown against Arians’ initial wishes. You know, what Tommy wants Tommy gets — or else!)
If you believe some that claim Brady bristles at his coach publicly detailing Brady’s mistakes, one could connect the dots and see, in theory, Brady throwing his weight around and getting Team Glazer to bring in a new coach — or else!
You know, like Brady telling Team Glazer (Joe is just going to throw a name out here) to bring in Belicheats offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels or he will retire.
That only fits if you believe Brady doesn’t get along with Arians. Joe has always thought this alleged friction between the two was a load.
Let’s think about this:
If Brady really didn’t get along with Arians, or didn’t like how Arians calls him out in press conferences when he screws up, don’t you think Brady’s agent, Don Yee, would have already texted a friend in the electronic media (say Peter King, Jeff Darlington or Jay Glazer) who would then report in so many words, “sources close to Tom Brady say he’s unhappy with his situation in Tampa… “?
By Week 12, Joe is confident that would have happened already.
So it will be a bit interesting to see what Jay Glazer has to say (if anything) today in his Sunday morning inside-scoops report on FOX.
Remember, the NFL is a business. A multi-billion dollar business. And sometimes that business trumps the football goals of others within an NFL organization.
December 6th, 2020 at 8:51 am
Why would the old cheating goat need to leak his displeasure to the media???????? Have you not heard 10 minutes of national media coverage??????? Ole stale biscuit is getting roasted!!!!!!! As he should!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ole stale biscuit has been exposed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brady could talk to team glazer’s today and have Ole stale biscuit fired and an interm coach hired by tonight!!!!!!!!! He is that much of a media/hype draw for the Bucs!!!!!!!!!!! And we all know that is what is most important to team glazer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
go bucs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
December 6th, 2020 at 8:59 am
what if:
brady was just playing around this 3rd quarter of the season throwing lame ducks and jaboo type throws because he knows a few games of these shenannies was gonna create a media feeding frenzy on arians wing-dog type offense style…
thus causing bruce to conform and become a puppet…
the puppet of tom brady…
el pupito…
brady runs this league and knows how to get thing done…
what if this is all a ploy to make bruce buckle and let brady run his offense…
just a thought
December 6th, 2020 at 9:03 am
i’ve seen brady toss throws in the 3rd quarter of the season that i’ve never seen him make in 20 years…
throws right to the opponent or hanging in the air long enough for an entire opposing team to get under it…
almost like he’s just giving the ball or game to the other team on purpose…
clearly un-brady-like…
and it’s really not an arm strength thing
December 6th, 2020 at 9:28 am
This year was the year to strike while the iron was hot with Brady.
Attendance, merchandise etc.
Next year will be much less of a demand to see Tommy play in person because this year, while solid by Buc’s standards, has proven to be somewhat anti-climactic to the rest of the NFL and TB fans.
Not terrible but not great either.
I hope he stays at least another year and that we draft or acquire a good, TEACHABLE, QB for him to mentor.
December 6th, 2020 at 9:59 am
The Bradys bought a house somewhere near the beach in Pinellas. Brady has alot of freedom with playcalling and offensive personnel suggestions.
Arians is a player friendly coach.
The Bucs should make playoffs this year.
Expectations will be high next year.
Brady ain’t going anywhere.
December 6th, 2020 at 11:05 am
If the Bucs don’t make the playoffs, we might see both TB and BA retire.
December 6th, 2020 at 11:12 am
Oh, the controversy that isn’t there….
December 6th, 2020 at 12:44 pm
Don’t know why Buc Brass would capitulate to appease Brady, if he makes demands. HE is signed for only one more year. We are better this year but we aren’t quite as good as some thought we would be, We show signs of missing the preseason to gel.
December 6th, 2020 at 1:45 pm
Sorry Joe but it’s probably gonna take you and the rest of these players to get the vaccine for about a year after it’s put into place so don’t get too hyped up that there will be no more masks by the Super Bowl. Could be the same situation next year.
December 6th, 2020 at 1:55 pm
They said if we’re down in the fourth quarter we’ll give the coaching to Tom. It’s the beginning of the fourth quarter and we’re down. Do your thang GOAT.
December 6th, 2020 at 6:29 pm
Just a little FYI for the Glazers…You can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice!
Sorry the Covid squashed your TB12 Sales&Marketing wet dream.
Maybe Glazer’s thought they were buying a SB in 2020, when signing TB12…But they should have known, @ 43, they were buying an older version of Kirk Cousins. (Unspectacular but safe.)
If this 2020 team doesn’t make a serious play-off run…(& @ 7-5…It’s not assured they’ll make the play-offs!)…The only thing they have to sell next yr,
will be the TB12 retirement tour.
“Come out & see the GOAT before he retires or gets carted off” is a terrible sales pitch.
December 6th, 2020 at 6:49 pm
Everybody assumes that the long bombs are a product of BA’s desires and offense.
Someone speculated early on that perhaps this is also Brady loving his new found freedom to let it fly. Perhaps inside of steady Tom Brady was a Darryl Lamonica dying to get out. It was probably liberating for Brady….at least early on. Perhaps now..not so much.
So two weeks to figure out a better blend of run, possession passes to the bombs.
I think BA and TB12 have one thing in common for sure. They both simply want to win…at any cost including their egos. They will do whatever they think will win. The team is poised to get their act together during the bye and make a strong run into the playoffs. Riding a 4 game win streak out of the bye would be a great start.
December 6th, 2020 at 8:47 pm
Florio is the absolute worst. Great . Are you kidding me. Do u really think Brady tells any of these clowns anything.
December 6th, 2020 at 10:44 pm
Probably true Brady has leverage, but while the 2021 Bucs may be a hot ticket for Brady’s farewell tour, what would actually sell season tickets – as I was for many years – is long term sustainable success.
A free agent circus followed by rebuild? Sure, might grab a seat on StubHub next year, but I’m not investing in a team that could be getting a top five pick in 2023. Brady needs to win the trophy or he’s in the way of a long term winner behind a young, mobile QB running a modern offense.
December 6th, 2020 at 11:50 pm
So this ____ took over $960,000 in PPP loans for his sports performance and nutrition company, TB12, and not a peep out of anyone in the media or him about it?! Done with him, this team and ALL local media. No words for people like this. I know people who have lost it all this year.
December 7th, 2020 at 8:38 am
Nickerson — Brady broke no laws, used the money to keep his people employed so they didn’t “lose it all”. Do you have contempt for all the other business owners who did the same thing?