Is A Power Play Between Tom Brady, Bruce Arians Taking Place Right Before Our Eyes?
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- There are two types of people in this world. There are those who believe everything that NFL players, coaches and executives say into a microphone, and then there are smart people.
OK, that was heavy-handed, but the point is this: the reality in almost every situation has to be found in the space between the words.
Enter Tom Brady, Bruce Arians, and Jason Licht.
Obviously, the greatest quarterback of all time has put forth arguably the weakest retirement attempt of all time. From having his father and agent deny the retirement reports, to saying two days later that he wasn't close to a decision, to actually announcing that decision a day later ... on Instagram? Then to float the "never say never" line within a week regarding a possible return to football? None of that is how Brady planned it.
That generated a rather reasonable thought (aka conspiracy) that Brady's "retirement" was merely a sham to guarantee himself a one-way ticket out of Tampa Bay to play for a coach that he likes/respects/trusts more than Bruce Arians. The Bucs' head coach has a great reputation among NFL media members, because he uses cuss words and seems like one of the fellas, but the reality is he won more playoff games in his first season with Tom Brady than he did in all six of his previous seasons as a head coach combined. And in his second year with Tom Brady, he matched the postseason win total of his pre-Brady career as a head coach, too. With one.
The "superteam" Buccaneers were 7-5 at their bye week in 2020 before Arians relented and gave control of the offense over to Brady. They never lost again.
Despite the championship, something must have fractured in the Brady-Arians relationship. And so it is perfectly reasonable to believe Brady is biding his time as a "retiree," thus forcing the Buccaneers to invest a lot of money and/or draft capital in acquiring their next franchise quarterback, only to have a change of heart with some convenient timing, thus forcing the Bucs to trade him away in time for training camp.
It's actually a solid plan for Brady. But on Tuesday, Bruce Arians put the kibosh on it.
"No," Arians told reporters at the combine when asked if he'd trade Brady if that's what the QB wanted.
And why not?
"Bad business."
Fair enough.
In a sitdown interview with NFL Network's Andrew Siciliano, Arians was also asked if he'd be open to trading Brady, if that's what Brady wanted.
"Nope. Nope. Bad business," Arians said. "I'm not trading the best quarterback ever."
Once again, fair enough.
But here's the thing with that: Bruce Arians is not the general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At 66 years old, he was brought out of retirement by the actual GM, Jason Licht.
And earlier on Tuesday, Licht talked about Brady and said, "Let's just say, we'll leave the light on. We always leave the light on for a guy like Tom Brady."
Makes sense.
Given that scenario, Arians was asked about the potential pickle of spending a lot of resources in acquiring a new quarterback, only for Brady to announce he's back and ready to play sometime in the summer.
Arians was ready for that one.
"Then that other guy's number two," Arians said without missing a beat. "No -- if Tom Brady's coming back, he's back."
And that is where things stretch beyond the bounds of believability with Arians' show on Tuesday.
Take an imaginary scenario where the Bucs trade a first-round pick to get a quarterback -- say, Russell Wilson or Deshaun Watson. Or take a slightly different imaginary scenario where the Bucs trade something less -- maybe a second-round pick -- for a slightly less quarterback -- say, Jimmy Garoppolo -- to fill their need at the most important position on the field. With that quarterback comes a high salary and a huge cap commitment, while also building an offense around that player.
In Arians' mind, that new guy -- with the high price and all -- will slide to the sideline to watch Brady play quarterback, and Brady's cap hit of $20.27 million somehow won't be a problem either. Merrily, the Bucs will roll along, with Brady running the show, and some high-priced veteran quarterback feeling a bit confused on the bench.
That's not happening.
And that's why it feels as though we just witnessed a service return from Arians in a battle playing out in a public forum. If -- and it's still an "if" at this point -- Brady's plan is to announce his return after the Bucs commit to a new quarterback, then he has to know that it's a checkmate move to get what he wants and go somewhere else. For now, Arians isn't conceding that point.
Some other factors do come into play. For one, there was Brady at his rich guy golf tournament in Florida on Monday dropping a cryptic answer of "To be determined, I've got a lot of things going on," when asked if his lone job these days was as a podcast host. Then you've got Arians on Tuesday telling the media that he'd love to play golf with Brady when he's ... back in the States?
Unless Arians knows something we don't, Florida is in the states. Brady was temporarily on vacation outside of the country during the weekend of the retirement hoopla, but he's presumably returned home at some point over the past month. He's got kids in school. He's got a clothing line to run. (An out-of-this-world item like the "BRADY PANT" doesn't sell itself, you know?) And he was certainly in Florida this week ... to play golf.
Arians also threw out a little bit of a verbal barb on Tuesday, likely in an attempt to slow down the hubbub regarding Brady.
"Unbelievable ride these last two years. I've gotta say, Tom got all the credit. A lot of other guys had a hand in the pile," Arians told the assembled media. "It wasn't all just Tom Brady."
That statement is unequivocally true, and Brady would agree with it as well. But it's an odd thing to kind of throw in to a comment about Brady, who is theoretically retired. Would seem to be an unnecessary thing to say. Little out of place.
In any event, it sure seems like a high-stakes game of chicken is being played with the quarterback position in Tampa. Or, perhaps, they're all just telling the truth, and we can take everything at face value. Either way, the situation remains unresolved and figures to remain that way until something -- anything -- actually happens.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.