On Sunday, Byron Kennedy willingly surrendered a football that he could have sold for an amount in the range of $500,000. He didn’t get fair return for giving the ball back.
His return has been made a little less unfair.
Bucs quarterback Tom Brady declared both on Twitter and during the Monday night Manningcast that Kennedy also will be getting a Bitcoin from Brady. Peyton Manning quickly changed the topic, possibly because he wasn’t interested in giving the cryptocurrency any free advertising.
Speaking of free, it’s likely that Brady isn’t paying for the Bitcoin, which currently has a value of more than $62,000. Between the mention of Brady’s crypto sponsor on Twitter and the live reference during the Manningcast, Brady’s use of a couple of key platforms more than paid for the Bitcoin.
Even if Brady is giving Kennedy a Bitcoin from his own personal stash, it’s a great deal for Brady to get a ball that receiver Mike Evans had given to Kennedy -- and that the Bucs by all appearances couldn’t have forced Kennedy to give back. Interviewed at the game by the Tampa Bay Times, Kennedy said that he initially declined, twice, to surrender the ball that had become the 600th touchdown pass of Brady’s career.
If Kennedy had held firm (or if he would have just gotten up and left the game with his half-million-dollar souvenir), he would have gotten a lot more. And no amount of pressure he may have faced in the moment will match the grief that Kennedy will take for years to come for throwing back for a handful of birdseed the Moby Dick that jumped into his boat.