Brady Resigns for Less, Let The Nightmare Continue

The band is staying together!

This band of course is the reigning Super Bowl champions.

After ripping off impressive win after impressive win, building off of a solid defense, great passing attack and solid running game, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are running it back with their superstar team.  As a Saints fan, I am horrified.

The thought of seeing this team twice a year and competing with them for division standings makes me want to cry, especially now that Drew Brees has retired and the Saints are now left with famous Jameis Winston and swiss army knife who won’t stop fumbling, Taysom Hill.

Tom Brady is at the center of this rallying cry to keep the team together as he has just resigned for a very team-friendly deal that allows his salary cap to be spread out in order to create much more flexibility for the team in order to re-sign key players that led them to the championship. 

One could even go as far as to say that Brady wasn’t the main reason (on the field) that this team won! The team was surprisingly led by superstars on defense such as Shaq Barrett, Lavonte David, Devin White and more.  With pending free agents on both sides of the ball, it looked like it was going to be a challenging offseason in terms of retaining their talent. Then TB12 stepped in and led the charge for his teammates to remain in Tampa to keep the show moving into next season and possibly beyond.

Defensive stars are set to remain in Tampa for their championship window. (Matt Ludtke/AP Photo)

This feels like the opposite of what Drew Brees did in New Orleans.  Rather than take less money to retain talent, Brees would often demand trucks of money that the Saints couldn’t deny him that led to players leaving and left very little cap room for talent to be added to the roster during free agency. Even with cap wizard extraordinaire, Mickey Loomis, the Saints never churned out a good free agency class because of this.

Pending free agents such as Barrett and David resigned with the teams for less than they could’ve received on the open market due to the influence of Tom Brady and the idea that winning is more important than money right now. Not only did defensive studs fall in line, but other stars such as Rob Gronkowski and Chris Godwin fell in line and signed deals to keep them in Tampa. Granted, Godwin was hit with a franchise ta, not particularly given him much of a choice but he will still likely be getting paid less than he would have had he departed in free agency.

The Brady extension will save the Bucs about $19 million against the salary cap this year and with what is called “voidable years” the cost of Brady’s deal can be spread out. A similar tactic was used with David’s contract that allows Tampa Bay to truly maximize Brady’s remaining time. Although, who knows how long that is. 

Brady has stated in the past that he wanted to play until he turned age 45. But that has now changed and he has left it open-ended in terms of when he wants to retire. And if he feels good, why shouldn’t he?  He will be 44 at the start of the next season and with the roster around him being retained and his ability to STILL play at a high level, why wouldn’t you?

This is head coach Bruce Arians and general manager Jason Licht’s dream.

As a fan of a division rival, I couldn’t think of anything worse to have happened.