Michael Irvin Adds To Tom Brady Free Agency Chaos With Cowboys Rumor, Swift Couching

By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston

+BOSTON (CBS) -- Officially, as of Monday morning, free agency in the NFL is just 37 days away. Mercifully, there is an end date in sight.

The latest chapter in the speculative nonsense that is The Tom Brady Situation™ comes courtesy of Hall of Famer and Cowboys legend Michael Irvin. The former wide receiver who works for NFL Network ignited a major Tom Brady Firestorm™ when he dropped a nugget during an interview on WEEI. Irvin discussed the possibility that the Cowboys might place the franchise tag on Dak Prescott, and then trade him away ... after signing Tom Brady as a free agent.

Here's what Irvin said in that interview:

"I am telling you right now, at the Super Bowl in Miami, some very significant people that I had conversations [with were] leaning in that same direction. It was shocking. I had a vodka cranberry in my hand and when they said it to me I put the drink down and said, 'Let's talk a little bit more about this.' I promise you, I had a conversation with people, I can't tell you who, about that same scenario going down."

Naturally, when the words "Cowboys" and "Brady" are mentioned in the same sentence, people are going to react by lighting their hair on fire and running down the street. When the sentence is uttered by a Cowboys Hall of Famer who's presumably plugged in with the organization, you can multiply that reaction by three.

Alas, when this predictable reaction took place ... Irvin immediately sucked out any and all juice that might have come from his spicy nugget.

"I never said Jerry [Jones] or anyone in the organization said this to me," Irvin tweeted. "It was NOT anyone with the @dallascowboys."

Oh.

Well then.

Later on Sunday, Irvin seemed perplexed about the coverage that followed his comments. He even busted out some emojis.

"This is AMAZING!! Not once did I say anything about any1 in the ⁦@dallascowboys⁩ organization speaking w me regarding @TomBrady," he tweeted, sprinkling in a couple of laugh-crying emojis.

Sure enough, on ESPN on Monday morning, Dan Graziano said that Cowboys/Brady chatter is merely fun speculation, not something the Cowboys are seriously considering.

"I believe the Dallas Cowboys' plan is for Dak Prescott to be their quarterback," Graziano said. "And I don't think that this is something that's being talked about at any serious level in their building."

Irvin, of course, did not say that the people he spoke with were from the Cowboys organization. At the same time, not many people would give much of a hoot about what those "significant people" speculated at some party where Irvin was drinking a vodka cranberry if those people were in fact not involved with the Cowboys organization in any way. Irvin had to have known when he was selling his story as a juice bomb that the insinuation would be that Cowboys folks -- as opposed to random folks -- were the ones raising the possibility.

But of course, as we now know, those "significant people" probably aren't all that significant as it relates to any possibility of the Cowboys pursuing Tom Brady.

Thirty-seven more days, people. Thirty-seven more days.

In:
• NFL
• Tom Brady
• New England Patriots
• Dallas Cowboys