Tom Brady revealed a month ago that when he hit free agency last year, he was stunned to learn that an unnamed other team had decided to stick with its current quarterback, rather than extend Brady a contract offer. Or, as Brady stated explicitly, “I was thinking, you’re sticking with that motherf–ker?”
That has resulted in a great deal of speculation about which team and which “motherf–ker” of a quarterback Brady was referencing. Brady’s lips are sealed.
“There’s private things for me that are going to remain motivational for me,” Brady said in an interview with Jim Gray on SiriusXM, via the Boston Herald. “They know who they are . . . it’s fine. Everyone has a choice to choose. I think what you realize is, there’s not as many smart people as you think. That’s just the reality. I think it’d be a no-brainer if you said, ‘Hey, you’ve got a chance to get Wayne Gretzky on your team, or you got a chance to have Michael Jordan on your team.’ . . . ‘Oh, we don’t need him, no thanks. We’re good.’
“In my mind, I’m kind of thinking, ‘OK, let me go show those teams what they’re missing.’ At the same time, let me go prove to the team that did bet on me, and the team that really showed they really wanted me, and committed to me, that I’m not going to let them down.”
Even after becoming widely proclaimed as the greatest of all time, Brady finds new ways to convince himself that he’s being doubted. And one unnamed team with an unnamed “motherf–ker” at quarterback is motivating Brady as a Buccaneer.