Even the G.O.A.T. felt compelled to move on at some point.
Tom Brady, in his weekly newsletter, discussed his singular time becoming a free agent in 2020 after two decades leading the New England Patriots dynasty. The first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback noted that after so long, he and coach Bill Belichick's goals began to diverge.
"I was only involved in free agency once, at the tail-end of my career, when free agency means something very different than it does for a backup coming off a disappointing season or a young guy coming off the last year of his rookie deal," Brady wrote.
"For me, it was a creeping decision that lived passively in the back of mind for 2-3 years until March of 2020 when a whirlwind of a few days made me realize that a decision was coming sooner rather than later. The reality was, after twenty years together, a natural tension had developed between where Coach Belichick and I were headed in our careers, and where the Patriots were moving as a franchise. It was the kind of tension that could only be resolved by some kind of split or one of us reassessing our priorities."
The "natural tension" led to Brady signing in Tampa Bay, where he'd prove he was far from washed up, throwing for 108 touchdowns in 50 games with the Bucs and leading a cherry-on-the-top-of-his-career Super Bowl win in his first season in Florida.
At the time, the Patriots didn't have the talent on the roster to maximize Brady's skill set.
In explaining his approach to free agency, Brady said he categorized what was important to him.
"I asked myself, as someone headed into their forties with school-age kids and twenty years worth of battle scars, what truly mattered to me now?" he wrote. "What I ended up with was a list of about twenty things that I then ranked and graded on a weighted scale from 1 to 3. The presence of skill players was a 3 in terms of importance, for example, and the Bucs graded out as a 3 because of guys like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. The same was true for the head coach. That was a 3 in importance, and Tampa scored a 3 with Bruce Arians. Game day weather was a 2, practice weather was a 3. Financial compensation was on the list, obviously, but it wasn't first, it probably wasn't even top 10, and it definitely didn't rank as a 3 in importance.
"In the end, I chose Tampa, almost exactly five years ago now, because, in the aggregate, it graded out higher than New England along those twenty or so dimensions. It's not much more complicated than that."
Brady's advice might have come out a tad late to inform 2025 free agents, as most have already grabbed their chair for the upcoming season. However, it's interesting to hear how one of the most manic preparers in NFL history went about his approach to the process.
