The world was a very different place in 2020. The entire world was on lockdown due to COVID, and the sports landscape in particular was affected. The NCAA Tournament was canceled, the NBA moved the end of its season to the bubble, and even things sports fans had come to count on, like Tom Brady playing quarterback for the New England Patriots, had changed.
Brady wanted a two-year guaranteed deal, which the Patriots weren’t willing to offer him. They put up a 1-year, $30M offer on the table, but he left it to sign a two-year, $50 million contract with the Tampa Bay Bucs, putting an end to what looked from the outside to be a tumultuous final few years of his partnership with Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft.
Fast forward to today and both the QB and the coach are in very different places that nobody could have seen coming — Brady is a minority owner of the Raiders and the top analyst on Fox’s NFL broadcasts, while Belichick is coaching in college at North Carolina.
Back then, Brady leaving the Patriots, the team he’d won six Super Bowls with, was a huge deal. Even NBA people, who are far more used to top players moving around, were shocked by it. That included Shaquille O’Neal, and he said at the time that the Patriots never should have let Brady go.
“Some guys are lifers,” Shaq said on an episode of NBA on TNT Tuesday. “D-Wade’s a lifer, Kobe [Bryant] was a lifer, Tom Brady shoulda been a lifer.”
Shaq has always been a pretty self-aware guy, and he used his own career to explain why Brady was different. “I would think they would have shown him a little more respect, that’s what I think. A guy like me? I’ma get traded five times ’cause I’m crazy, that’s just how it is. But a lifer like Tom Brady, I was kinda disappointed in how that went down.”
No one expected a 6x Super Bowl champ to be disrespected that way, and to not get his due in his final years. However, it all worked out well for Tom Brady, who went on to win #7.
Tom Brady ended up getting the last laugh on the Patriots
New England only offered Brady a one-year deal worth $30 million, perhaps due to the fact that he was already in his early 40s and players have traditionally fallen off badly once they reach that age. The Bucs showed no such fear, and they reaped the benefits of landing the best quarterback of all-time when they went on to win Super Bowl LV 31-9 over the Kansas City Chiefs.
Candace Parker chimed in after Shaq to say that Kobe Bryant was the only athlete she could think of that had been paid not for what he could do for a franchise, but for what he already had done. Kobe signed his final two-year, $48.5 million contract with the Lakers when the team was no longer a championship contender, and he was not the same player he once was.
The Lakers gave Kobe that final contract not because it was necessarily the most financially sensible move, but to reward someone who had meant so much to the franchise. “The last two or three years that he played, they paid him and gave him bank because he deserved it,” she said.
Dwyane Wade further explained the difficult position the Patriots were in. “One of the toughest things for both the athlete and the organization is the aging superstar. When you got somebody who’s been so great, for not only the team but also the community. One of the toughest things is what you do when that aging superstar doesn’t move on and you’re kind of ready to get to that next phase.”
The Patriots surely wish now that they had believed more in Brady despite his age. Their handling of the situation was understandable given the context of how older athletes had finished their careers before, but as he did throughout his time in the league, Tom Brady proved that he’s a one of one.
More must-reads: