It’s safe to say that, so far, Tom Brady’s 23rd NFL season has been an unmitigated disaster. So if he wanted to return next season to try and get a better ending, at least one NFL reporter thinks it could happen with a different team.
After Brady retired and then un-retired this offseason, that set a series of events in motion that seem to have doomed his third season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Head coach Bruce Arians left and replacement Todd Bowles hasn’t quite been able to replicate his predecessor’s success. The team has been dealing with a string of injuries. Brady’s personal life is in shambles and the quarterback is dealing with a never-ending string of injuries himself. There are also plenty of concerns about how he looks, how he treats teammates, and what else is going on with him. Meanwhile, the Bucs are 3-5 and Brady is in a losing position he’s never been in this late into a season.
There’s still more than half a season ahead so things could change for Brady and the Buccaneers. However, if they don’t improve and Brady wants to continue playing, he could certainly find a new home next season.
SI’s Senior NFL Reporter Albert Breer thinks that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Brady could end up playing for the San Francisco 49ers in 2023.
“I don’t think it’s impossible,” Breer said. ” … I will say this, I thought about the idea of San Francisco. If they decide Trey Lance isn’t ready and Jimmy (Garoppolo) wants to leave and Jimmy leaves, the Niners have had this discussion. The Niners had this discussion this year — ‘If Tom was available to us, would we do it?’ They had that conversation this year, and the light was sorta left on for that.
“I think there’s a competitive part of him that if the Niners decided, ‘We want to make a run at Tom Brady, with the core that we have,’ and we see the urgency with which they sorta built their team, I think that would be really tempting for Tom.”
The 49ers were Brady’s favorite team growing up and there were a ton of rumors and reports in 2020 that he could play for them before he ended up signing with the Bucs.
Brady has made it clear that he hasn’t made a decision about retirement (again) yet, so while this is just speculation, for now, consider that door open until it’s closed. And even then…