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Buccaneers QB Tom Brady To Retire

January 29th, 2022 at 1:29pm CST by Sam Robinson

The increased rumblings of a Tom Brady retirement following his 22nd season did not let up, and Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports reports this is the direction the all-time great is expected to take. Not long after that report surfaced, ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington confirm the Buccaneers quarterback is set to walk away (Twitter link).

Brady has long said he wanted to play through at least his age-45 season, with even that lofty timetable being potentially extended after his seventh Super Bowl victory last year. Those plans appear to have changed. Last weekend’s Rams game indeed looks like it will be Brady’s finale, though some uncertainty exists on the Bucs’ part.

While Schefter and Darlington add the Bucs have braced for Brady’s exit for weeks, the team did not receive advance notice of Saturday’s news. Bruce Arians indicated earlier this afternoon (via the Tampa Bay Times’ Rick Stroud, Twitter links) he had not yet been informed about the retirement. Brady’s agent also tried to hit pause on this situation (via SI.com’s Albert Breer, on Twitter). Brady does appear to be ending his career, but Greg Auman of The Athletic notes (on Twitter) TB12Sports deleted a tweet acknowledging its top client’s accomplishments. Bucs players are nevertheless voicing their appreciation for Brady on social media.

The 44-year-old quarterback has pushed the boundaries of the position to an unprecedented place, remaining a Pro Bowl-caliber player into his mid-40s. Brady finished as this season’s second-team All-Pro passer and had the Bucs as the NFC’s No. 2 seed. Tampa Bay’s reload operation did not result in the team defending its Super Bowl title, with Chris Godwin‘s injury and Antonio Brown‘s explosive exit weakening this year’s team late in the season. But Brady did not show much in the way of decline following his bounce-back 2020 slate. But one of the greatest players to in the sport’s history is unlikely to go through a walk-off tour next season despite having signed a through-2022 extension last year.

Given the cap gymnastics the Bucs performed to bring back their entire Super Bowl-winning core, it was going to be difficult for the team to pull off a similar act for the 2022 season. The likes of Godwin, Rob Gronkowski, Leonard Fournette, Jason Pierre-Paul, Carlton Davis, Ryan Jensen and Alex Cappa are among the Bucs set for free agency in March. With on the cusp of ending his storied career, it can certainly be expected a second Gronkowski retirement will soon follow. Gronk said this week that if he was forced into a decision now, he would indeed leave the game for a second time.

Having been a pro in every 21st-century season and having started for the past 21 years, Brady will finish as the NFL’s leader in every major statistical category. The former Patriots mainstay’s postseason resume laps his peers’, and after his NFL-most 43 touchdown passes this season, Brady will finish his career with 624 — 53 more than the next-closest passer’s total. He and Drew Brees passed this record back and forth last season, and while the recently retired Saints legend is a bit closer to Brady in passing yards, the ageless Bucs QB will exit the game with that record (84,520) as well. Brady’s retirement comes a year after Brees’ and days after Ben Roethlisberger‘s.

Brady’s place as the game’s greatest player can be debated in the years to come, but the former sixth-round pick is without question the best draft investment in NFL history. The 199th overall pick in 2000, Brady launched his unexpected rise to NFL stardom by keeping the Patriots’ QB1 job after a September 2001 Drew Bledsoe injury. The Michigan product proceeded to start 316 games, missing time only because of a 2008 ACL tear and 2016’s four-game Deflategate suspension. In between, Brady piled up six Super Bowl-winning seasons with the Pats.

While the Patriots machine centered around Bill Belichick‘s defenses in the early 2000s, with Brady making just one Pro Bowl in his first four seasons as a starter, he collected three rings in that span. After the Patriots acquired Randy Moss in 2007, Brady made a seismic leap by throwing 50 touchdown passes and winning the first of his three MVP honors. Although the Pats’ hopes at a 19-0 season did not come to fruition, with that upset loss to the Giants coming months before Brady’s September 2008 knee injury, the New England centerpiece remained on his position’s top tier for another decade and change.

Including the famed 25-point comeback win in Super Bowl LI, Brady finished his career with a record five Super Bowl MVP awards and won four championships past age 37. Brady’s decision to sign with the Bucs for two years and $50MM led to the end of that franchise’s 12-year playoff drought and Tampa Bay’s second Super Bowl win.

This retirement call may close the team’s title window, with the Bucs fully committing to Brady and not acquiring an heir apparent. It will be interesting to see if Arians retires for a second time, though the 69-year-old Tampa HC said he would return in 2022. The Bucs will need to dive back into the quarterback market soon, be it another veteran or through the draft, after their successful 2020 plan is abruptly coming to a halt.

Tom Brady’s Non-Answer About Return

January 23rd, 2022 at 8:39pm CST by Ely Allen

Tom Brady‘s 2021 season is over. Following a thrilling loss to the Rams in which the Buccaneers just fell short of their comeback bid, Brady was asked about how he will contemplate whether to come back or not. Brady’s thoughts were clearly still centered on the loss he had endured moments before. 

“I haven’t put a lot of thought into it. So, we’ll just take it day by day and see where we’re at,” Brady replied. He continued, “Truthfully, guys, I’m thinking about this game and not thinking about anything past 5 minutes from now.”

Our staff writer, Rory Parks, expanded quite a bit on Brady’s non-committal attitude going into the Divisional Round game, and it appears his attitude has not changed quite yet.

As a result of the one-year extension Brady signed last March, he is under club control through 2022, and he affirmed several months after he put pen to paper that he would honor his commitment. Indeed, he has long said that he wants to play until he is 45, and 2022 would be his age-45 season.

In brighter news for the Buccaneers, head coach Bruce Arians has already spread the news that he is not retiring. Through three years in Tampa Bay, Arians has already added a Lombardi Trophy to the case. The 69-year old plans to coach until he can’t anymore. He also told reporters (before today’s loss) that he would be “shocked” if Brady called it quits after this season. We’ll have to wait a bit longer to see just how well Arians knows his veteran quarterback.

Buccaneers’ Bruce Arians Won’t Retire

January 23rd, 2022 at 5:53pm CST by Zachary Links

The Buccaneers are done, but head coach Bruce Arians isn’t. Moments after the Bucs’ heartbreaking loss to the Rams, the Bucs head coach confirmed that he’ll be back this fall (Twitter link via Sara Walsh of FOX Sports). That jibes with what Arians has been saying for years now, including his latest comments just last week. 

[RELATED: Brady On Future, Possibility Of Retirement]

“I’m coaching till I can’t,” said Arians, who will celebrate his 70th birthday in October (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport).

However, it remains to be seen whether Arians will have Tom Brady under center next season. For what it’s worth, Arians told reporters on Friday (before today’s loss) that he would be “shocked” if Brady calls it quits.

“The way he was at practice, I would be shocked if he didn’t (play next year),” Arians said (via the Tampa Bay Times). “You know they have that Friday quarterback challenge, and he came flying out of the locker room, sprinting two or three fields away and couldn’t wait to get into the challenge. He was like a little kid. I would be shocked.”

Meanwhile, Arians may need to make some new hires to his coaching staff. Defensive coordinator Todd Bowles and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich are both up for head coaching jobs and they could be poached as soon as this week.

Tom Brady Non-Committal To Playing 2022 Season

January 23rd, 2022 at 8:45am CST by Rory Parks

In advance of the Buccaneers’ wildcard round matchup with the Eagles last week, Tampa Bay QB coach Clyde Christensen said of quarterback Tom Brady, “I’m your typical fan, and I’ll be thinking, ‘is this the last time we’re going to see him?'” (via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times).

It was not, of course, the last time Brady would take the field, as the Bucs handily dispatched Philadelphia to advance to today’s divisional round contest against the Rams. However, Christensen’s comments were a precursor to increased speculation about Brady’s future. As Albert Breer of SI.com tweets, “the drumbeat’s gotten louder on the idea” that Brady could retire after the 2021 season.

As a result of the one-year extension Brady signed last March, he is under club control through 2022, and he affirmed several months after he put pen to paper that he would honor his commitment. Indeed, he has long said that he wants to play until he is 45, and 2022 would be his age-45 season.

However, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports hears that several of Brady’s teammates believe the current playoff run will mark Brady’s last ride. As one source close to the seven-time Super Bowl winner put it, “Nothing’s been said, but there is a sense among some guys in the locker room that this is it, one way or the other. It’s just little things here or there they are picking up on. Maybe it turns out to be nothing.”

La Canfora is not the only national beat to pass along that type of report. This morning, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com and Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington of ESPN.com also wrote that Brady’s status for the 2022 campaign is very much in doubt. That comes on the heels of longtime Patriots teammate Rob Ninkovich‘s appearance on ESPN’s “Get Up!”, in which Ninkovich indicated he would not be surprised if Brady elected to call it a career at season’s end (video link).

Schefter and Darlington say that Brady is non-committal to playing next year, and that he will take a month or more after the season is over to determine how he feels physically and mentally and to speak about the matter with his family. They also posit that, if the Bucs should repeat as Super Bowl champs, it will increase the likelihood that Brady steps away.

None of this should really be all that surprising. Brady is 44, after all, and his ability to maintain an elite level of performance after all these years is unprecedented. It stands to reason that, at this point in his career, he would want to take some time after the season is over to assess the situation. And as one source told Rapoport, Brady hasn’t thought about 2022 and beyond yet simply because he is singularly focused on the Rams game.

On the other hand, as RapSheet observes, the fact that Brady has not yet definitively stated he will return is a little unusual. Ordinarily, he would have already announced his plan to continue his playing career by this point in the calendar.

Even if Brady does come back, the Bucs will likely look a lot different. The organization managed to retain every starter on the Super Bowl LV squad in its pursuit of a repeat, but that will be impossible to do this year (though Schefter and Darlington report that the Bucs are willing to “bend over backwards” to entice Brady to come back). As Stroud writes, head coach Bruce Arians believes his QB will return for his age-45 season, and with Brady under center, Tampa Bay can remain competitive even if they do have to part ways with a number of other key contributors.

This year, Brady led the league in passing yards (5,316, a career-best) and threw 43 TDs against 12 interceptions. Those 43 touchdown passes were the second-highest total in his career, behind only his otherworldly 2007 campaign with New England.

Pats’ McDaniels Not Getting Interview Requests?

January 16th, 2022 at 10:26pm CST by Ely Allen

In an article for NBC Sports, Mike Florio divulged that a source with knowledge of the situation informed him that Patriots’ offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels hasn’t received requests to be interviewed by any of the eight teams currently looking for a new head coach. This development has surprised the Patriots, but they expect the situation to change soon. 

McDaniels is a long time Patriots’ staffer, first joining the organization in 2001 as a personnel assistant. After a year, McDaniels worked with the team as a defensive assistant for two years before switching to the offensive side of the coaching staff. After one season as the Patriots’ quarterbacks coach, McDaniels was promoted to offensive coordinator, developing the Patriots’ offense into the juggernaut that broke several NFL records in the 2007 season. His coaching success led to much speculation that he could be a top candidate for head coaching jobs, but he pulled his name out of the ring before the Patriots even finished their playoff run.

When McDaniels was able to lead a Patriots team quarterbacked by Matt Cassel to an 11-5 record, following a season-ending injury to Tom Brady in Week 1 of the 2008 season, the Broncos saw fit to name McDaniels as their new head coach for the 2009 NFL season. McDaniels’s tenure in Denver started with a six-game win-streak before losing eight of the next ten games to finish the season 8-8. After a 3-9 start to the 2010 season, and multiple controversies from his handling of difficult players, Denver decided they’d seen enough and fired McDaniels after Week 13. McDaniels spent a year as the offensive coordinator of the Rams, under Steve Spagnuolo, before returning to New England following Spagnuolo’s firing.

McDaniels has stayed in Foxborough ever since. He’s continued to draw head coaching interest here and there, even accepting the head coach position for the Indianapolis Colts in February of 2018 before backing out of his commitment on the same day to stay in New England, prompting his long-time agent, Bob LaMonte, to sever ties with McDaniels.

McDaniels’s handling and development of rookie quarterback Mac Jones has led to some speculation that one of the two teams that have both 1) a head coaching vacancy and 2) a young quarterback might show immediate interest in the 45-year old coordinator. Can Bill Polian overlook his lack of a good relationship with McDaniels and advise that the Bears bring him in to mentor Justin Fields? Will McDaniels decide that he can handle working for Trent Baalke and agree to take Trevor Lawrence under his wing? Keep track of McDaniels and other candidates in our 2022 NFL Head Coaching Search Tracker.

Bucs, Tom Brady To Discuss Extension

October 9th, 2021 at 8:29pm CST by Zachary Links

The Buccaneers have Tom Brady under contract through 2022, but they still intend on discussing an extension with him after this season, according to Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com. A fresh deal could give the Bucs additional breathing room in ’22 while cementing Brady as their QB well into his 40s.

Brady’s desire to test Father Time is well documented at this point. So far, the 44-year-old has been victorious, prompting GM Jason Licht to suggest that Brady could play until the of age 50.

“Fifty? That’s a long time. Even for me, that’s a long time,” Brady said earlier this year. “I’ve always said 45 was the age that I wanted to reach and that was my goal. This year I’ll be 44, so next year I’ll be 45. I got a two-year contract. I’m going to be able to obviously play this year and God forbid anything happens but play next year and then see what happens after that.

“If I still want to keep playing, I might be able to do that. And if that’s enough, then that would be enough.”

TB12 isn’t quite as confident as Licht, but La Canfora’s sources say he hasn’t given any thought to hanging ’em up between now and next fall. Brady’s also loving life in Tampa, so there’s little reason for him to seek a third pro team.

The Bucs are currently 3-1 with Brady under center. They’ll look for their next W on Sunday when they welcome the Dolphins to Tampa.

QB Notes: Patriots, Dak, Brady, Rosen

August 15th, 2021 at 5:37pm CST by Sam Robinson

Shortly after the draft, Bill Belichick said Cam Newton was the Patriots‘ starter and Mac Jones would develop behind him. Through two-plus weeks of training camp, a competition could be brewing. The gap between Newton and Jones has narrowed, Mike Reiss of ESPN.com notes. It is not certain if Jones can mount a legitimate charge to unseat Newton for Week 1, but modern NFL history — excepting the Packers’ blueprints — points to this transition happening this season. Newton has never played a backup role as a pro, so it would be interesting to see how the Patriots would proceed if Jones beats him out. If Jones does end up winning the job, Belichick giving Newton a choice to either stay with the Patriots or be released would not surprise Reiss. New England re-signed Brian Hoyer this offseason and has Jarrett Stidham on its roster.

Here is the latest quarterback news from around the league:

  • The Cowboys are being cautious with Dak Prescott‘s injured shoulder, but good news continues to emerge on the sixth-year quarterback. After a strange update by the Cowboys’ Twitter account indicated Prescott would undergo a second MRI, Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram notes that exam took place Saturday and revealed progress. Dak’s ailing shoulder is healing on schedule (Twitter link). Prescott threw before the Cowboys’ second preseason game this weekend and experienced no pain in doing so, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport (video link). Prescott is likely to return to practice this week, and Rapoport notes playing in one preseason game is on the table. It does not appear, at this point, Cowboys fans should be concerned about Dak missing Week 1.
  • Kyle Shanahan said recently Josh Rosen was trending downward. The former top-10 pick, who is vying for the 49ers‘ third-string job, took a couple of steps back in recent practices, per Shanahan (via the San Francisco Chronicle’s Eric Branch). In Rosen’s preseason debut with the team, he completed 10 of 15 passes for 93 yards but threw an interception. When asked postgame about Shanahan’s critique, Rosen said he does not receive many practice reps in the first place, per Branch, who adds it is unlikely Rosen gained ground in his competition with Nate Sudfeld to make the team’s 53-man roster. Sudfeld did not play in the 49ers’ preseason opener. The 49ers keeping both, with the competition’s loser on the practice squad, is in play. But Rosen losing this battle would represent another setback in a pro career filled with them.
  • As you’ve surely heard in recent years, Tom Brady wants to play until age 45. The future first-ballot Hall of Famer recently signed a Buccaneers extension that runs through 2022, and longtime trainer Alex Guerrero said during an appearance on the Adam Schefter Podcast (via Boston.com) his client should not be expected to retire after this season. Guerrero said Brady playing beyond 2022 would not surprise. Brady has kept this door open, though the 44-year-old quarterback has not committed to playing beyond next season.

MCL Surgery For Buccaneers’ Tom Brady

July 15th, 2021 at 3:21pm CST by Zachary Links

Earlier this year, Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady underwent knee surgery, but didn’t specify the exact issue, saying only that it was “pretty serious.” According to a source who spoke with Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, Brady had a partial tear of the MCL. Meanwhile, people close to Brady claim that it was actually a complete tear of the ligament (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport).

[RELATED: Brady Won’t Commit To Playing Beyond 2022]

Brady says that he became aware of the injury in the spring, but Stroud hears that it actually occurred in 2019, Brady’s last year with the Patriots. He’s had similar issues before, including an MCL sprain towards the end of the 2018 season. The Patriots — in classic Patriots fashion — declined to disclose the injury.

Fortunately, Brady is expected to be cleared in time for training camp this summer. It won’t be an easy recovery — especially since Brady is in his mid-40s — but he’s proven that he can outrun Father Time. At minimum, Brady hopes to play through 2022.

“Fifty? That’s a long time. Even for me, that’s a long time,” Brady said recently, somewhat countering GM Jason Licht‘s suggestion. “I’ve always said 45 was the age that I wanted to reach and that was my goal. This year I’ll be 44, so next year I’ll be 45. I got a two-year contract. I’m going to be able to obviously play this year and God forbid anything happens but play next year and then see what happens after that.

“If I still want to keep playing, I might be able to do that. And if that’s enough, then that would be enough.”

AFC West Notes: Raiders, Jefferson, Broncos, Massie

June 28th, 2021 at 8:42pm CST by Ben Levine

During an appearance on HBO’s The Shop: Uninterrupted, Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady discussed his reactions to a potential 2020 free agent suitor pulling out of the sweepstakes to stick with their incumbent signal-caller.

“There was a story, in free agency, one of the teams, they were interested and all of sudden they weren’t interested at the very end,” Brady said. “I was sitting there thinking, you’re stick with that [expletive]? Are you serious?

“When I look back I’m like, there’s no [expletive] way I would’ve went to that team. But they said they didn’t want me. I know what that means, I know what that feels like.”

There’s been plenty of speculation about the mystery team and quarterback that Brady was referring to, and Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com cites multiple league sources who believe the future Hall of Famer was referring to the Raiders and Derek Carr. Las Vegas had been mentioned as a potential Brady suitor during the 2020 offseason, but the organization dropped out of the sweepstakes after balking at Brady’s long list of requests. As Florio notes, Brady had his chance at payback last season, when he tossed four touchdowns in a 45-20 Tampa Bay victory over Las Vegas.

Unless Brady unexpectedly reveals who he was talking about, we’ll never truly know if it was the Raiders. Plenty of other teams and quarterbacks have been mentioned, including the Bears/Mitch Trubisky and the Titans/Ryan Tannehill. The 49ers and former teammate Jimmy Garoppolo have been a popular suggestion, but considering Brady’s lifelong affinity for San Francisco (and his declaration that he was never going to sign with that team in the first place), we can probably cross them off the list.

Here’s more out of the AFC West…

  • Quinton Jefferson has played all over the defensive line during his five-year career, but despite the Raiders depth at defensive tackle, the team is still planning to play their free agent acquisition at his natural position. The 28-year-old will be teaming up with the Raiders main offseason acquisition, defensive tackle Yannick Ngakoue, and Jefferson is excited to form a two-headed monster with his good friend and former college teammate. “Yannick is one of the best pass rushers in the NFL right now and he brings that intensity,” Jefferson told The Athletic’s Vic Tafur. “He is going to bring some pressure and help relieve Maxx (Crosby), free Maxx up so that other teams can’t key on one guy. And then hopefully I can bring some interior pressure as well, so we should have a good mix out there. I am excited to see how that all comes together.”
  • Ryan O’Halloran of the Denver Post explores several Broncos players who find themselves on the roster bubble prior to training camp and the preseason. Atop his list is defensive tackle McTelvin Agim, a 2020 third-round pick who was limited to only 110 defensive snaps as a rookie. O’Halloran notes that it’s troubling that the young defensive lineman wasn’t working with the starters during minicamp despite the absences of Mike Purcell and Shelby Harris. Offensive tackle Calvin Anderson, running back Royce Freeman, safety Trey Marshall, and linebacker Derrek Tuszka also earned spots on the list.
  • The Broncos brought in both Bobby Massie and Cameron Fleming to compete for the starting right tackle spot, and ESPN’s Jeff Legwold believes Massie will get the first shot at the gig. Massie certainly has the advantage when it comes to experience; the 31-year-old has started 110 of his 118 career games, including each of his eight games in 2020. Meanwhile, Fleming has mostly served as backup throughout his career (91 games, 42 starts), although he did start a career-high 16 games for the Giants last season.

Tom Brady Not Committing To Playing Beyond 2022

June 18th, 2021 at 4:53pm CST by Sam Robinson

During Super Bowl week, Tom Brady said he would consider playing past age 45 — his long-held target year. The Buccaneers then signed the superstar quarterback to an extension that pushes his two-year contract to a three-year pledge.

Brady is now signed through 2022. GM Jason Licht later floated age 50 as a (perhaps half-serious) consideration, but Brady is not making any hard plans beyond next season.

“Fifty? That’s a long time. Even for me, that’s a long time,” Brady said, via USA Today’s Jori Epstein. “I’ve always said 45 was the age that I wanted to reach and that was my goal. This year I’ll be 44, so next year I’ll be 45. I got a two-year contract. I’m going to be able to obviously play this year and God forbid anything happens but play next year and then see what happens after that.

“If I still want to keep playing, I might be able to do that. And if that’s enough, then that would be enough.”

[RELATED: Bucs Extend Bruce Arians, Jason Licht]

Quarterbacks have played through age-44 seasons; Vinny Testaverde, Warren Moon and Steve DeBerg suited up at 44. George Blanda played until he was 48, though the quarterback/kicker was almost exclusively a kicker following his age-44 season. While Testaverde started six games for the 2007 Panthers — a year after serving as Brady’s backup — Brady will be the only full-time QB1 at this age. Blanda is the only player to have thrown a pass at age 45, so Brady making it to 2022 as Tampa Bay’s starter would add to his list of NFL firsts.

Brady has managed to avoid serious injury for more than 10 years, missing only the four games mandated by the Deflategate ban since his September 2008 ACL tear. Although Brady underwent knee surgery this offseason, he was back in time for Tampa Bay’s minicamp. The Super Bowl LV MVP will attempt to lead a Bucs title defense over a 17-game season this year and, barring a significant injury, is almost certain to return in 2022. Brady’s health will likely determine his 2023 plans.

“I’ll just have to evaluate all that when it comes,” Brady said. “It’s a physical sport; anything could happen. So I’m going to go out there this year and give everything I’ve got like I’ve done every other year, and then take it from there.”

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