Buccaneers QB Tom Brady downplays Raiders and Dolphins rumors

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is trying to dispel chatter about how he easily could have wound up somewhere other than his current home after leaving the New England Patriots.

Brady has been the subject of widespread speculation about how he considered the Las Vegas Raiders and Miami Dolphins when he became a free agent after the 2019 season. After Saturday’s preseason game, Brady tried to address that by claiming none of it was true.

“I read all these different stories about all these different places I was supposed to go or could have gone,” Brady said, via Joe Bucs Fan. “I was only going to go to one place, which was here. I think this whole organization knows that. All the conversations that we’ve had over a period of time, I chose the right place for me.”

Brady’s statement really doesn’t make a lot of sense. One of his previous statements, which we now know to be about the Raiders, certainly seems to indicate that he would have been interested in playing for them. Plus, the Dolphins were publicly punished for tampering with Brady before he became a free agent in 2019.

Brady would probably prefer that these things not be a subject of conversation, so he wants to try to put them to bed. This probably won’t do it, but there’s some benefit to putting a final statement down on the subject.