Tom Brady has announced his retirement from football and this is the second time he’s made that announcement, and according to claims in the locker room, some of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team are relieved and rejuvenated by his retirement announcement since there wouldn’t be any off-field distractions.
According to the Daily Mail;
Some of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team could be feeling ‘relieved’ Tom Brady has retired from football, according to extraordinary new claims.
Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl winner and widely considered the best quarterback to have ever played the game, retired in February at the age of 45 after the Bucs had been knocked out the playoffs by Dallas Cowboys.
Now, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, there could be a sense in the locker room that they will become better without Brady.
Florio claimed on Wednesday that the Bucs team could be better without the off-field distractions that come with a player of Brady’s caliber and reputation.
‘What a mess of distractions last year with everything that was going on with Brady,’ Florio said, as reported by Sports Illustrated. ‘And to be free from that, to be beyond that, I think there’s going to be a lot of [Bucs] who are relieved, and rejuvenated and recharged this year.
‘They’re not going to come out and say it, but I think they’re going to feel it, and I think that’s good for the Buccaneers.’
Brady took 11 days away from the preseason camp the Bucs held in the buildup for 2022 season last year, and then announced that he and his Brazilian supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen were divorcing after 13 years together following months of speculation.
All that came amid the backdrop of Brady retiring and unretiring in 2022. When he again announced his decision to quit in February, he insisted that it really is for good this time.
‘I’ll get to the point right away. I’m retiring, for good,’ Brady said in a video on social media. ‘I know the process was a pretty big deal last time so when I woke up this morning I figured I’d just press record and let you guys know first.
‘It won’t be long-winded. You only get one super emotional retirement essay and I used mine up last year.’
Bucs coach Todd Bowles has backed his team to move on from Brady but admitted they will lose a bit of stardust without him.
When you replace a player of that magnitude, first of all, you don’t replace him,’ Bowles told NFL.Com in March. ‘You lose aura. You lose the expectation of being great.
‘That doesn’t mean you can’t be great. You just have to do it more as a team. We did it as a team when he was there, but he was such a great player and a great person that you focus all on that.
‘And now that that is gone, the perception is that everything else is gone when really it isn’t.
‘We have a lot of good players on our team on both sides of the ball. We have some pieces to fill, but we have a lot of good football players on our team.’
Baker Mayfield has been signed by the Bucs as a new quarterback after Brady’s exit.
We will see how they feel when the season starts.
