Tom Brady’s agent has yet to work out a long-term agreement with the team’s front office, but that apparently hasn’t changed Brady’s relationship with the Big Kahuna in Foxborough.
Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald reports that Brady spent his off day from training camp golfing with Patriots owner Robert Kraft on Cape Cod. (We’ll assume they didn’t play Pirate’s Cove.) We’re not going to read too much into this, but it has to be seen as a positive for Brady’s future.
So could a deal be close?
Speaking on WEEI on Friday, former Patriots receiver Troy Brown predicted Brady would sign a contract this week. It sounded like Brown was speculating, but he thought Brady wouldn’t want to play in Thursday’s preseason opener without a new deal. Brown thought there would be a big push this week to hammer out an agreement. Perhaps he knew something.
We find Brady and Kraft’s close relationship interesting. In some ways, it reminds us of when Kraft said Drew Bledsoe was “like a son” and signed him to an emotional $100 million contract. One of Bill Belichick’s tenets is that no one is above the team, but Kraft isn’t going golfing on Sundays with James Sanders.
Could the Patriots front office be uncomfortable with this sort of relationship during a negotiation? Or is Kraft’s job to soften any hard feelings that have built up during contract talks?
Brady isn’t about to turn into late career Drew Bledsoe on the field, so all of these unanswered questions probably don’t matter. The key question continues to revolve around when Brady will sign his contract. It’s looking more than ever like when, not if.