The first slow week of the NFL offseason also featured Tom Brady dusting off his 2020 free-agency tour by pointing out that an unnamed team that wasn’t interested “at the very end” of the process was instead “sticking with that motherf–ker.” Whether Brady meant to do it or not, it sparked a protracted guessing game as to which team it may have been.
And, like everything else in our modern society, it’s impossible to reach a consensus on which team it was. Some believe it was the 49ers. Some think it was the Bears. Some insist it was the Titans. Others are still on the Chargers and/or the Colts.
In league circles, there’s one team that hasn’t been deeply thrust into the conversation, but perhaps should be: The Raiders. Multiple people with deep connections to the NFL’s matrix have reached out in the past 24 hours to express a belief that the unnamed team was the Raiders. Which, obviously, would make Derek Carr the unnamed “motherf–ker.”
As both sources explained it, the Raiders dropped out late in the process. As one source explained it, the Raiders thought Brady’s requests for extra things was over the top.
Then there’s this: Brady’s comment (which came to light on Friday night, when the full episode of The Shop: Uninterrupted debuted) that he ultimately would not have chosen the mystery team. That makes it not the 49ers; they were his first choice.
“When I look back I’m like, there’s no f–king way I would’ve went to that team,” Brady said. “But they said they didn’t want me. I know what that means, I know what that feels like. And I’m gonna go f–k you up because of that.”
Indeed he did, if it was the Raiders. In Week Seven, Brady completed 33 of 45 passes for 369 yards and four touchdowns (good for a 127.0 passer rating) in a 45-20 blowout of the Raiders. The only saving grace for Vegas was that the game was flexed out of prime-time due to a COVID issue, allowing the embarrassment to not be nationally televised.
Brady’s comments have now been nationally televised, and repeatedly discussed. Whatever the truth may be, some people in the league believe it was the Raiders.