Brady is back….back again

MegaBiffHead

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No one has explained to me how Bruce Arians (being Bruce Arians) would just acquiesce to being kicked up to the Bucs front office if he still intended to remain as HC and Brady forced him out. How does that jive with his personality in the slightest?

Also, putting a possible Rooney Rule violation based on an unconfirmed hypothetical on Brady seems a little extreme to say the least.
Can you elaborate on how you think it doesn't jive with Arians personality?

I understand his personality as being "Too bad, this is what we are doing", but I feel as though the decision was made by ownership and they said "Either take this other role or we'll fire you". I don't think his personality really had that much of a play in that IMO. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you are saying though.
 

Pandemonium67

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If anyone has paid his dues, it's TB. If he wants to play his last year or two without Arians changing the game plans he and the OC created, and he has the power to make it happen, then good for him.

But for god's sake, Tom, stay the hell away from Miami.
 

rodderick

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Can you elaborate on how you think it doesn't jive with Arians personality?

I understand his personality as being "Too bad, this is what we are doing", but I feel as though the decision was made by ownership and they said "Either take this other role or we'll fire you". I don't think his personality really had that much of a play in that IMO. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you are saying though.
Bruce Arians isn't the kind of guy to just play ball and keep stuff in house if he doesn't agree with it. If he still wanted to coach the felt the Bucs were trying to prevent him from doing that, we'd know about it for sure. He wouldn't just take that.
 

MegaBiffHead

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If anyone has paid his dues, it's TB. If he wants to play his last year or two without Arians changing the game plans he and the OC created, and he has the power to make it happen, then good for him.

But for god's sake, Tom, stay the hell away from Miami.
Honestly, I have a hard time believing any of this Miami rumor, it doesn't make sense from Tom's perspective of wanting to win a championship (Granted, this was probably happening before the huge influx of talent into the AFC)

Assuming it occurred beforehand, and they got Sean Payton, they still have to deal with the Bills & Chiefs, arguably the best teams you'd have to play through to get to the Super Bow. Miami, while being OK last year, doesn't seem like they were just a QB away from a SB. It doesn't make much sense to me I guess...
 

MegaBiffHead

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Bruce Arians isn't the kind of guy to just play ball and keep stuff in house if he doesn't agree with it. If he still wanted to coach the felt the Bucs were trying to prevent him from doing that, we'd know about it for sure. He wouldn't just take that.
Ok, perhaps our speculation is wrong and the workload as HC has become too much at 69? I know he denied health problems, but perhaps he didn't want to retire, just work less. Seems as though the workload even took a toll on a much younger Sean McVay.
 

rodderick

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Ok, perhaps our speculation is wrong and the workload as HC has become too much at 69? I know he denied health problems, but perhaps he didn't want to retire, just work less. Seems as though the workload even took a toll on a much younger Sean McVay.
He has retired once before already, it's not like everyone thought he'd be coaching another five years. I take Arians at his word: he was contemplating retirement and decided to go through with it to give his guys an opportunity to coach a contender (and wanted Bowles as his successor under the premise that Leftwich would be likelier to get an HC gig elsewhere). Now, I do believe that once Brady got the news of Arians' "promotion" it likely made the decision to come back to the Bucs a lot easier to him, I just don't see where this "Brady masterminded Arians' downfall" stuff comes from.
 

MegaBiffHead

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He has retired once before already, it's not like everyone thought he'd be coaching another five years. I take Arians at his word: he was contemplating retirement and decided to go through with it to give his guys an opportunity with a contender. Now, I do believe that once Brady got the news of Arians' "promotion" it likely made the decision to come back to the Bucs a lot easier to him, I just don't see where this "Brady masterminded Arians' downfall" stuff comes from.
Yeah, I just feel that the play calling on defense that last drive, particularly the 2nd & 11 (I think?) with no safety help vs a receiver that almost broke Calvin Johnson's record seems idiotic and probably cost Brady a ring. Yes, I know technically Bowles is doing that play calling, but I just think that Arians had to have been involved in that call... I can definitely see how Brady could potentially want him gone given his generally coarseness as well.

But, it's probably the more boring take that he just can't handle the workload anymore like you said.
 

RG33

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TB12 joining the Miami Dolphins would pretty much be the end of my fandom of TB12.

Although, the @JohnMD posts about it in the Dolphins thread may make it worthwhile.

In all seriousness, if this is true — I don’t think it is a great look for Brady. He would come across to me as pretty duplicitous and self-serving, basically smashing Arians and Flores and the NEP and TB fan bases all at once. Perhaps that is my rooting bias, but to faux retire and then basically take out two franchises HCs / QBs and to do it with a division rival of the team that you made your legacy with would be pretty WWE-villainy.
 

MegaBiffHead

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TB12 joining the Miami Dolphins would pretty much be the end of my fandom of TB12.

Although, the @JohnMD posts about it in the Dolphins thread may make it worthwhile.

In all seriousness, if this is true — I don’t think it is a great look for Brady. He would come across to me as pretty duplicitous and self-serving, basically smashing Arians and Flores and the NEP and TB fan bases all at once. Perhaps that is my rooting bias, but to faux retire and then basically take out two franchises HCs / QBs and to do it with a division rival of the team that you made your legacy with would be pretty WWE-villainy.
Idk, none of that Miami crap really adds up to me. Being its a hypothetical or at most a rumor, I just see how any type of opinion change can be made on this information.
 

lexrageorge

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I would not be surprised if the media reports got multiple threads mixed up; it's hardly the first time there was a blatantly inaccurate report about one of Tom Brady's teams (https://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=3398828)

The ownership stake has zero chance of happening while Brady is a player, and the media reports are too quick to handwave that fact away. There is no way Goodell would let it happen, and as Brady should know, Goodell's decision in such matters is final and not subject to appeal.

My guess is that Brady's agent explored the possibility of working out a trade to the Dolphins. Maybe something was said to the effect of "If you bring in Payton, Brady would leap at the chance to play in Miami". I'd even accept as fact that Brady stopped trying once it became known that Ariens was retiring from coaching. But it's a huge stretch to think that Brady was somehow going to orchestrate a blatant violation of the Rooney rule until stopped by the good guys that run the NFL.
 

Traut

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Look anything is possible here. For all of the reasons stated here - the Miami rumors are bizarre but Brady is also bizarre so who knows.

I think the spot that makes the most sense is San Francisco. The NFC is his best chance to go out a Super Bowl winner. It is his hometown. They can ship Jimmy G to Tampa and keep Lance for next year.
 

E5 Yaz

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Florio's been selling this narrative for months, and yet no other sports media source has made much noise about it at all.
 

rodderick

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I mean, I don’t like him very much but Volin wrote a pretty lengthy piece on all of this today. And while I’m sure he’s repurposing Florio stuff, I think he has more sources in Miami than he does in New England, frankly:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/08/sports/inside-tom-bradys-un-retirement-how-brian-flores-soccer-match-were-among-key-factors/
It's a bunch of repurposed stuff we've already read with clumsy speculation on how Brady would transition from the Dolphins FO to QB after taking a year off without ever discussing why the Bucs would go along with that and how the mechanics of the compensation/him having a stake would even allow him to play for the team while following league rules. It's pure conjecture.
 

Auger34

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Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t Volin generally regarded as a terrible reporter? Like people wonder how the hell he’s got a gig let alone one at the Boston globe?
I’m 99% sure he’s held in terrible regard amongst this board too no?
 

JohnnyTheBone

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Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t Volin generally regarded as a terrible reporter? Like people wonder how the hell he’s got a gig let alone one at the Boston globe?
I’m 99% sure he’s held in terrible regard amongst this board too no?
Yes, Volin is basically the worst. Nobody around here respects him, that I can recall.
 

Van Everyman

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I’m not a fan. He’s lazy (Howe said he reported on training camp from his sofa) and failed trying to leverage Deflategate into a national gig in spectacular fashion.

That said, I don’t think he’s a make-stuff-up guy (more a “report other people’s stuff without crediting them” guy). He was a Dolphins beat guy before New England and a number of stories over the years (the Jonathan Martin bully story, others) have shown that he still has decent sources down there. And as I said, a lot of what he says/repeats here has been reported on by people like Florio (like the fact that Ross triedto tamper with Brady).

I wouldn’t hand wave it all away just because you like Brady and/or hate Volin. There’s a fair amount of smoke here.
 
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Van Everyman

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Florio reports that Miami privately acknowledged that they wanted Payton – and that they were targeting Brady as a minority owner. Rich Ornberger reported all the stuff with Brady and Arians well before it became public. Flores, I believe, alleged that Ross tried to tamper with Brady in his lawsuit.

Is Florio the main guy driving this? Yes. Is there definitive proof Brady was trying to do this? No. But it seems at least likely (NARRATOR: PERHAPS MORE LIKELY THAN NOT) that there were some discussions about all of these things at least at some level. There are a lot of complementary pieces here that make sense.

Why is no one else really running with it? That I can’t really explain. People didn’t really run down the Peyton Manning HGH story either. Sometimes it may take more work to get the story than seems worth it. But regardless, Florio isn’t really a shit stirrer. Or hasn’t been.
 

PedroKsBambino

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Is it just me or is this story maybe getting a little less play around here than it should?

The narrative that has emerged: Brady tries to force his way back into the AFC East as a part owner of the Dolphins with Sean Payton as coach -- both were/are under contracts with other teams. It blows up because of the Flores lawsuit so instead he goes back to Tampa and forces the coach out. But wait! He still may leave next year for another team because he's only under contract for one more season.

I know we are in the LeBron era in professional sports after years of being kicked around by billionaire owners where star players have a lot more control and say in where they play and with whom. But this kind of power play seems particularly shitty in a lot of ways -- from forcing his way back into the division to the Rooney Rule violations it would've required to pull off getting Payton. And not something we'd expect from the Tom we knew for 20 years. But maybe we should have? Maybe this is who he is (and maybe always was)?
So, does this mean Belichick knew it was coming and intentionally text Flores? That would complete the conspiracy theory!

"Oh, my mistake wrong Brian" never seemed likely did it!
 

rodderick

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Florio reports that Miami privately acknowledged that they wanted Payton – and that they were targeting Brady as a minority owner. Rich Ornberger reported all the stuff with Brady and Arians well before it became public. Flores, I believe, alleged that Ross tried to tamper with Brady in his lawsuit.

Is Florio the main guy driving this? Yes. Is there definitive proof Brady was trying to do this? No. But it seems at least likely (NARRATOR: PERHAPS MORE LIKELY THAN NOT) that there were some discussions about all of these things at least at some level. There are a lot of complementary pieces here that make sense.

Why is no one else really running with it? That I can’t really explain. People didn’t really run down the Peyton Manning HGH story either. Sometimes it may take more work to get the story than seems worth it. But regardless, Florio isn’t really a shit stirrer. Or hasn’t been.
Seems to me like they took a nugget of information (Brady showed interest in potentially exploring a move to the Dolphins to play under Sean Payton) and turned it into a vast conspiracy. If you have no idea how the Dolphins would A) transition Brady back from ownership onto the field and B) trade for both Brady AND Payton, maybe don't insist on the story beyond the little you've been told? They describe this complex plan with a lot of moving parts and give us no glimpse into what would actually go into making it all work.
 

Auger34

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Seems to me like they took a nugget of information (Brady showed interest in potentially exploring a move to the Dolphins to play under Sean Payton) and turned it into a vast conspiracy. If you have no idea how the Dolphins would A) transition Brady back from ownership onto the field and B) trade for both Brady AND Payton, maybe don't insist on the story beyond the little you've been told? They describe this complex plan with a lot of moving parts and give us no glimpse into what would actually go into making it all work.
Bingo. I think the bold is why other publications and more of the media hasn’t blown this story up.
Both Florio and Volin pretty much just skim past this part when it’s massively important to the overall story
 

Van Everyman

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So here’s yet another columnist who has reported on this story: Dave Hyde of the Sun-Sentinel. This one has direct reporting from the Dolphins including Chris Grier acknowledging that they asked New Orleans for permission to interview Payton, a pretty detailed tick tock of Brady meeting with Ross on his yacht – as well as a source saying “Just wait, this will be big” when the Dolphins appeared to be slow walking their coaching search in January.

I hate that Volin (who mentioned the quote in his Sunday column) is one of the guys pushing this story. But I still think there’s enough smoke here to believe something was going on.
 

azsoxpatsfan

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So here’s yet another columnist who has reported on this story: Dave Hyde of the Sun-Sentinel. This one has direct reporting from the Dolphins including Chris Grier acknowledging that they asked New Orleans for permission to interview Payton, a pretty detailed tick tock of Brady meeting with Ross on his yacht – as well as a source saying “Just wait, this will be big” when the Dolphins appeared to be slow walking their coaching search in January.

I hate that Volin (who mentioned the quote in his Sunday column) is one of the guys pushing this story. But I still think there’s enough smoke here to believe something was going on.
Tik tok?
 

DJnVa

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I'm really interested to see how that goes. Sometimes the guys at his level are just so far beyond others at seeing and analyzing, it might not take.
 

streeter88

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How many times was it reported that Brady struggled to work with the rookies…? But then on the flip side he was also reportedly incredibly patient with AB? Agree with DJnVa it would be a very interesting experiment.
 

ifmanis5

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I didn't think he wanted the daily grind of broadcasting, saw him as more of a mogul or an owner. BB's text really derailed some shit.
Early reaction is in...
brady.jpg
 

Mystic Merlin

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I'm really interested to see how that goes. Sometimes the guys at his level are just so far beyond others at seeing and analyzing, it might not take.
It’s a tough gig, you have to simplify information very quickly, criticize players/coaches, and keep your takes engaging. Tons of former players have the knowledge and instincts for the analysis, but very few hit the second and third points.

I never really thought he was just disappear post-retirement, but given the grind of an analyst job - at least if you’re doing it right, which he will - this surprises me. The average number of daily waffles he will be making for his kids keeps dropping!
 

jsinger121

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It’s a minimum 63 day commitment of being gone. Fly in on Friday’s to watch practices, meet coaches and players and out by Sunday. That expands during Fox super bowl seasons. It’s not a big grind. He’s also not flying commercial like some of these others.
 

rodderick

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I'm really interested to see how that goes. Sometimes the guys at his level are just so far beyond others at seeing and analyzing, it might not take.
Is this really an issue? I think it comes down to personality and ability to think on the spot more than anything. I think Peyton's really good when he's breaking games down, and so are Tony Romo and Kurt Warner. Brees sucks because he's just boring as hell, not because he's just so more advanced in his understanding of the game than the guys playing that he can't alayze it in a way that translates to the viewer.
 

Van Everyman

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I love Brady but don’t see it. Unlike a Tony Romo, Brady doesn’t have an outgoing or gregarious personality. So as much as Brady might see something as a quarterback with an exceptionally fast mind, I’m not convinced he has the ability to translate those thoughts into words. Maybe he does, and maybe he’ll grow into it. But I don’t really see any evidence that he has done that before. Not yet anyway.
 

JOBU

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Yeah I have a hard time seeing this. I’ll go in with an open mind and see how it goes. I’m not expecting it to go well but I could be pleasantly surprised. I would not be surprised though if he turns down the offer before he ever calls a game from the booth.
 

bankshot1

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I think a fair amount of Brady's success in the broadcast booth as a rookie color guy will be linked to the relationship/chemistry he has with his partner, (Kevin Burkhardt) and KB's ability to get TB12 engaged and not to be afraid of being overshadowed by a rookie.
 

Willie Clay's Big Play

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The thread is in the media forum within the baseball forum, in case anybody else is looking for it.
Thanks, lurker. Pointing out the appropriate place to post about TFB, the greatest quarterback ever, working in the media belongs in a media forum under a thread about baseball should get you a few points towards advancing past your current status.
Tom will kill it. Can’t wait for him to rip some $20M+/yr receiver for a mental error.
 

CR67dream

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Thanks, lurker. Pointing out the appropriate place to post about TFB, the greatest quarterback ever, working in the media belongs in a media forum under a thread about baseball should get you a few points towards advancing past your current status.
Tom will kill it. Can’t wait for him to rip some $20M+/yr receiver for a mental error.
That seemed a little harsh
Harsh indeed. And bullshit.

He was pointing people to where the conversation is happening, which is perfectly appropriate. And bullying someone because of lurker status isn't something that's looked upon kindly. No call for that response at all.

Keep in mind that it's just as easy for us to demote as to promote. Just sayin'....
 

BrotherMouzone

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Thanks, lurker. Pointing out the appropriate place to post about TFB, the greatest quarterback ever, working in the media belongs in a media forum under a thread about baseball should get you a few points towards advancing past your current status.
Tom will kill it. Can’t wait for him to rip some $20M+/yr receiver for a mental error.
Oh please oh wise member, please show me the error of my lurker ways.
 

Willie Clay's Big Play

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Harsh indeed. And bullshit.

He was pointing people to where the conversation is happening, which is perfectly appropriate. And bullying someone because of lurker status isn't something that's looked upon kindly. No call for that response at all.

Keep in mind that it's just as easy for us to demote as to promote. Just sayin'....
Yea, you’re right. That’s my fault. I apologize. Here’s how that should’ve read:

+1 for directing me to the thread. I had no idea it was there. Thanks!
 

dcdrew10

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Harsh indeed. And bullshit.

He was pointing people to where the conversation is happening, which is perfectly appropriate. And bullying someone because of lurker status isn't something that's looked upon kindly. No call for that response at all.

Keep in mind that it's just as easy for us to demote as to promote. Just sayin'....
Word

And it was a far more helpful post than "We have an entire thread dedicated to this topic guys." because it actually made it clear where the thread was for folks who stick to only a few main forums and are aren't as familiar with the site architecture of SOSH. And clearly not enough people here have watched The Wire, because you don't mess with Brother Mouzone and his crew.