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Now that Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are officially eliminated from the postseason, the free agency saga for the legendary quarterback can unofficially begin. It will be a while before anyone can safely contact him and a while before free agency begins, but his contract is up.
The legendary quarterback has really only perused his options once before - when he first chose Tampa Bay in 2020. He'll now have his pick again, but he likely won't choose the Bucs one more time. Here's why.
Why Tom Brady isn't going to return to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
3) Poor coaching
Tom Brady may have butted heads a bit with Bruce Arians, but there's no denying that he was an excellent coach. He and Brady won the Super Bowl in their first year together and won 12 games the next.
Once he left, the Buccaneers went downhill fast. Todd Bowles has only won eight games and the team was fortunate to even have that many. Bowles is expected to stick around, so Brady probably won't.
2) The Buccaneers are a bad team
The Buccaneers, simply put, were an awful football team. If the rest of the NFC South wasn't putrid, they wouldn't have sniffed the playoffs. They have holes at tight ends, running backs and other places and the defense was much worse this year.
Without much hope for the immediate future, there's no reason for Brady to consider sticking around.
1) There are too many good options
There are plenty of teams that will line up to sign Brady, even at his increasing age. Most of them represent greener grass than what is in Tampa Bay. He'd have to pass up playing for Mike McDaniel in Miami and throwing to Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill. He'd have to pass up playing for his old offensive coordinator in Las Vegas and throwing to arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL, Davante Adams.
He'd have to pass up playing for his hometown and childhood favorite, the San Francisco 49ers. Throwing to George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and Christian McCaffrey is as exciting as it gets.
There are plenty of other options and they're all better than Tampa Bay. Why would Brady want to stick around for the final years of his illustrious career?
