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Tom Brady was clearly looking for a championship when he held on to the Buccaneers last March. To argue that he was motivated to bounce back from a disappointing season would be an understatement. His numbers dwindled to a level where critics considered him a true rocking chair candidate, and where the Patriots, who have ridden on his shoulders since selecting him with the 199th pick in the 2000 draft, but suffered from a immediate wild past. loss of the card, he refused to give him the long-term deal he was looking for.
And so I wanted to prove a point, and emphatically.
Sure, Brady could have gone to a handful of other destinations and had at least an equal chance to compete for hardware. The rigors of the National Football League are such that nothing is set in stone, and the Buccaneers, while brimming with talent, carried a baggage of despair over a prolonged absence from the playoffs dating back to 2007. Anyway , there may be without denying that he chose with a purpose. Not surprisingly, he was able to lock his Hancock into a two-year contract worth $ 50 million. And it is not for nothing that he brought with him such notables as Rob Gronkowski, Leonard Fournette and Antonio Brown. One was a year away from retirement, the other a discard, and the third a walking public relations nightmare, and yet he still landed positions on the list for them.
In fact, the Buccaneers almost handed Brady the keys to the kingdom. They were already trending upward before his arrival, but thought it was more than just an improvement on the interception-prone Jameis Winston. They saw him as a culture changer, a living legend that everyone else could build trust in. They saw him as a winner, period. And if now they emphasize the reward and do not delve into the risk of their fateful decision about 11 months ago, it is because they dared to dream and dream big. He wasn’t sure, especially in the midst of a pandemic that eliminated his transition period and reduced practice time to a minimum, but he was close, perhaps even closer, to one.
The gamble was both ways, of course. Already recognized as the best quarterback in the annals of the sport, Brady didn’t need to overcome another hurdle at age 42. He could have enjoyed the fruits of two decades of work. Instead, he deliberately put his reputation on the line because he felt he needed to show everyone, and even himself, that he was far from over. And while doubt crept into his last season at times, there was simply nothing to stop him from regaining the respect and respectability he believed he shouldn’t have lost in the first place.
Today, Brady is back at the top of professional football. He wasn’t at his best in Super Bowl LV, but because the Buccaneers backed him, all he needed to be was himself. And now he has seven rings on his fingers and a fifth Most Valuable Player award on his shelf. That he’s triumphant after going through a postseason escalation against a Who’s Who of names in the middle only serves to underscore the seriousness of his achievement. He’s looking at wins against Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes with pride, and with good reason.
When Brady signed with the Buccaneers, he talked about getting a new jersey number, as Pro Bowl catcher Chris Godwin was already wearing it. General manager Jason Lichtenstein recalled him asking if there were 7 available. Why? Because, the infallible Hall of Famer said, it represents the number of titles he will have at the end of the season. And, true enough, it does. Although he still used 12, the anecdote speaks to his sense of purpose, one that will undoubtedly fuel his desire to mount the first successful title defense since he did it himself in 2005. As he emphatically pointed out the other day, “We are! coming back!” As far as he is concerned, the stage is set and the stage is his.
ANTHONY L. CUAYCONG has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant in strategic planning, human resource management and operations, corporate communications, and business development.
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