Bruce Arians Says He'd Never Let Tom Brady Unretire to Play Somewhere Else

Mark LoMoglio. Shutterstock Images.

Over the last couple of days, the situation revolving around Tom Brady's retirement took on a different sort of a feel to it, thanks to the bizarre and incomprehensible nature of NFL contracts:

I go way out of my way to stay blissfully ignorant when it comes to these things. I'd rather save the limited memory left in my brain to store song lyrics, movie/TV references and sexual conquests than waste the gigabytes on stuff like salary caps and dead money and league years. I choose to keep the attorneys making the billable hours in charge of such claptrap. 

That said, this business of June 1 sticks out for me. As I become more and more convinced that Tom Brady didn't retire from NFL football, he retired from employment by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it makes all the sense in the world that everything is on hold for three more months, and that's when he'll make his move. It certainly makes more sense than the idea he'd walk away from the game altogether after the MVP-caliber season he just had. A full year before even his own most conservative estimates of how long he planned to play to. 

If you agree with me, we are not alone. Bruce Arians no sooner set foot in Indy for the Combine than he was asked about it. And his answers were as insane as they were revealing about why Brady wanted out of Tampa:

Yup. You tell him, Bruce. If Brady doesn't want to play for you, he won't play for anyone at all. No sirree. It's Tampa or nowhere, Hoss. Good luck finding a trading partner when Ol' Busy Whiskers here slaps a bajillion draft dollars price on the man who is solely responsible for winning him a ring. 

Furthermore, Brady's just one of them Big Ego guys who can't deal with his own irrelevance, even after only being out of football a month. So he's got to start these rumors to keep his name getting mentioned on all the cable shows. Boy howdy, you got that right. 

Of course that begs the question of what good Brady does Arians sitting down in Costa Rica next September when he could be giving his former team some sort of return on investment? And I'm not talking about five No. 1s, but something reasonable. Something befitting a guy who just threw for 5,200 yards and 40+ touchdowns and led one of his signature Comeback for the Ages in his final postseason game, but who'll turn 45 during training camp. How is it good "business" to get nothing instead of something for a guy who is done playing for you? 

And while we're on the subject, how exactly does Arians think Rob Gronkowski came into his life? Did he find him floating down the Nile in a basket? The version I remember is that 10 years of playing for a taskmaster was enough, and he was happier selling gummies than playing. So when Gronk got recruited to Tampa, Belichick got the 139th pick for him and a 7th rounder. That sounds like good business to me. As opposed to getting nothing, which is Arians preferred option.

So I'm more convinced than ever that Brady wants to come back and play somewhere. The only remaining questions are whether the Bucs are willing to do the decent thing for someone they owe so much to and accommodate his wishes. And, how did Brady manage to play two whole years in Tampa before he got sick of this Arians buffoon?