Where Tom Brady wants to go after leaving the Patriots
rback As quarteTom Brady became a free agency after the 2019 NFL season and departed the New England Patriots, there’s more proof that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were not his first choice.
Patriots insider Seth Wickersham revealed that Brady “wanted to go to the” San Francisco 49ers in 2020 in an interview with Michael Grant of Horrible Announcing.
Regarding Brady’s desire to play for the 49ers, Wickersham stated, “He wouldn’t have had a free-agency tour if they were interested.” It is the house he grew up in. The first time since he was in high school, his parents were able to drive him to games.”
Brady was closely associated with the 49ers in the early months of 2020 and was raised in San Mateo, California, as a San Francisco 49ers supporter. It was eventually discovered, though, that general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan of San Francisco had only briefly entertained the idea of signing Brady before deciding to go with Jimmy Garoppolo as the starting quarterback. Naturally, Brady concluded his first season as the starting quarterback for Tampa Bay with a seventh Super Bowl ring in his career, and Shanahan subsequently expressed regret for not signing TB12 in March 2020.
Furthermore, according to a report this week by ESPN’s Nick Wagoner, if Brady had been willing to call off his second playing retirement, which he declared in February 2023, Shanahan would have started him this season instead of Brock Purdy, a second-year professional.
Additionally, Wickersham mentioned how Jon Gruden, the previous head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, “passed” on signing Brady in 2020. According to the narrative, before Gruden “blew the deal up,” UFC president Dana White “worked to put that deal together” for Tom Brady and future Hall of Fame tight end Rob Gronkowski to join the Raiders following the 2019 season. Brady to the Raiders was “a lock” until it wasn’t, according to former Las Vegas tight end Darren Waller, who stated last winter that he “heard it from multiple sources that I respect and I’ve been close to.”
“They all look like fools because of how successful (Brady) was,” Wickersham continued, referring to the Patriots’ decision to let Brady leave after the 2019 campaign and the decision to sign him before he went on to win a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers.
