Tom Brady was so tight-lipped about his plans that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers found out they won the sweepstakes the same way as everybody else
- Tom Brady's move to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was the biggest move of a busy NFL offseason.
- According to one NFL insider, Brady and his team are pretty good at keeping things close to the vest, so much so that the Buccaneers didn't know they had landed Brady until news reports came out.
- "Really how they knew he was coming to Tampa officially was because there weren't a ton of people refuting those rumors," NFL Network's Peter Schrager told Bill Simmons. "So they were kind of reading the tea leaves too."
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Tom Brady sent shockwaves across the NFL when he decided he was ready for a change this offseason.
After 20 years and six Super Bowl titles with the New England Patriots, Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the start of the 2020 offseason, setting up a compelling final chapter to his historic career.
As NFL Network's Peter Schrager told Bill Simmons on "The Bill Simmons Podcast," Brady's team is so good at keeping things tight-lipped, the Buccaneers weren't even sure they had landed Brady until they saw the reports.
"I didn't know for sure until it was official," Schrager told Simmons. "The wheels were in motion at the combine, which was the last week of February. My guys around the league were telling me it was going to be Chargers or Buccaneers — Titans were out, Colts were out."
He continued:
"All the news came out that it was going to be the Buccaneers. That night, it was going to be Buccaneers. The guys in Tampa weren't even certain it was going to be Buccaneers until even after all that news came out because Brady kept it close to the vest. Really how they knew he was coming to Tampa officially was because there weren't a ton of people refuting those rumors, so they were kind of reading the tea leaves too."
Before Brady officially departed, it was tough to tell what the quarterback had in mind for the 2020 season. He was an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career, but a return to the Patriots didn't feel out of the question.
But as free agency approached, it became clearer and clearer that Brady was looking for a change of scenery, with the Buccaneers, Raiders, Chargers, and Titans all emerging as potential contenders to sign the future Hall of Famer.
Brady made his departure official in an Instagram post just before the official start of the offseason, thanking New England fans and the Patriots organization for the two decades he spent with them. However, even with his exit ticket booked, his destination was unclear.
The next day, reports finally revealed that Brady would be heading to the Buccaneers, and according to one NFL insider, the Tampa Bay front office was as surprised as any of us to hear the news.
Once he was officially a Buccaneer, Brady offered a little insight into why he chose Tampa Bay while speaking with SiriusXM's Howard Stern.
"I wrote down 20 different things that were important to me," Brady told Stern. "Then I prioritized what was important, and then I kind of scaled it, and then I looked at all the different opportunities that were out there."
As it turns out, the Buccaneers were just the opportunity Brady was looking for, but they didn't know for sure until the news was already official.
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