Expecting combat when it
is the day. When you supposed to account, you
will see. We'll talk about it next week.
I'm not concerned about it right now. We're trying to
practice against Tennessee and play a game. I said sometime
after Tennessee There's No definitive date for me but
we'll check on it.
We'll keep in touch and we'll find out.
Oh, Todd Bowles, with a little tell, their little stress.
We'll check on it next week,
the touching of the face, while delivering the information,
the time on its psychological.
And physiological reaction to stress. Look I feel bad for
Todd Bowles.
I do. He's the one who's out front and center. Dealing with
these questions about Tom Brady
but this idea
that Tom Brady has been gone for eight days now
on a pre-planned
training camp. Hiatus, unprecedented, that's fine.
Everything about Tom Brady. At this point is unprecedented 45
year old starting quarterback who had over 5,000 passing
yards last year. Still at the height of his overall Powers
somehow,
Still going a family. That is maturing an aging to the point
where he's got a kid in high school for crying out loud.
We've never seen this. No one's ever had to deal with it but
we've definitely never seen somebody just say during
training camp.
I'm gone. It's all pre-planned. I'm trying to understand how
the conversation went.
Hey, guys, I need to leave on
August. The
the 11th I need to leave on the 11th. Okay, fine. Well, how
long you gonna be gone? I don't know.
Okay, fine, just come back. Whenever,
How do they? Not know, when he's coming back. If this was
all pre-planned.
So
look, I struggle with this Shereen because on one hand,
the man's entitled to his privacy,
and he's allowed to have personal reasons for whatever
he's doing, on the other hand, he has chosen to live for over
20 years for over half of his life, a very public existence
and he Embraces it on Twitter. Social media, he's constantly
selling something. Whether it's crypto or underwear or
whatever,
he's into big business and
Relies on his public Persona and fame to do it. You don't
just disappear
for one week and longer in training camp and expect
everyone to just say, well, we respect Tom Brady's ability to
disappear from training camp whenever he chooses to do. So
no people are going to be curious.
People are going to wonder what's going on. People are
going to wonder whether he's coming back. These are all fair
questions because they have created a vacuum of
information. And we're all curious, we're naturally
curious the greatest player of all time is gone.
And we don't know when he's coming back.
How are we supposed to sit there and just shut up and
watch it? Play out.
Well and Mike, my first thought was poor Todd Bulls because
he got put in this situation. It's really his first big test
because we don't know if Tom Brady's coming back, we don't
know when Tom Brady's coming back. They don't seem to know
if and when Tom Brady's coming back and the Mystery is
a distraction, no matter what they say. It absolutely is
playing out as
a distraction.
And my first thought, unfortunately was, can you
imagine this? A Bill Belichick team.
Oh well, I'm just gonna leave on August 11th and not come
back. It wouldn't have played out like this and it certainly
wasn't pre-planned. It's something that happened along
the way. Whatever happened
that forced him,
prompted him to leave the team
and go do whatever he's doing now. And I don't know
why that takes as long as it's taken,
but, you know, the books came out and said
he'll be back. After the second preseason game and I guess,
technically, they didn't lie because
there's no definitive date for him to come back, but it's
going to be after the second preseason game. So but we just
don't know when. So it's going to be Sunday or Monday. And
I tell you what, Mike,
if he doesn't show up Sunday or Monday, they're off Sunday. But
if he's not around on Monday,
This is going to blow up because
at that point I just
don't think he's coming back. I mean how
you've got to think that there's something going on now, that
that is leading him to stay away from the team?
It has been characterized as personal reasons, Rick Stroud,
our friend with the Tampa Bay times has reported that it is
not a health situation, for Brady, or any of his family
members, which is good news, but still
we are left with nothing
other than to sit.
And wait, I feel like a big part of this has been PR
failure by the Buccaneers. Now maybe they've been put in a bad
spot because how much can you really say
about where, Tom Brady is,
what he's doing? If he's coming back, I continue to believe
he's coming back. I just don't know when and I don't know what
the Fallout is internally again. It's Tom Brady.
So the rules are different
at some point, though. The human beings who are in that
locker room are going to grow a little bit resentful. When
the boss, when the guy who's in charge, Charge isn't there
working alongside everyone else.
And you are
at some point you're going to get a little upset and you
know, Shireen
for the same reason
that if calamari struggles at any point this year,
we're going to say, ha ha
ha ha.
Now putting enough time studying film before games, if
Tom, Brady struggles, at any point this year,
aren't we? Going to say,
well, if you hadn't disappeared for two weeks during training
camp, maybe you wouldn't be struggling.
Well, I think that's the thing that stands out for me is he
would have been the last person. I would have expected
to leave for two weeks during training camp just because you
go back to covid you know he violated what the nflpa put
out.
About not having those
voluntary workouts
and he organized those and he had his teammates there and
they were working out anyway, this is a guy who his MO is
the work work. Work, work work. I mean, tv12 come on, that's all
he does.
And I know he's working wherever he is if he's coming
by he's working and he's working hard but he's not
working with this teammates. He's away from the team and
we've just never seen this before. That's not his Mo.
This is a guy that wants to be around his teammates that wants
to. To learn his receivers. And hey, by the way, he has some
new receivers this year. He has some new tie-ins this year. He
really needs to get to know those guys that he's going to
be playing with in week 1, presuming, he's going to play
week 1. So
this is just unlike him and I think that's why the mystery is
what it is is because we've never seen this before from Tom
Brady. He's always been a guy who's been there every single
day. Working alongside its teammates working
harder than his teammates and he's Not there now to do that.
He's had no social media activity that I can discern
since August 3. He hasn't
and see I just think that if you are going to live and
extremely public existence And if
every other one of your tweets is going to be selling something,
and you, you know, you post different, you know, I'm that's
what point do you have an obligation as an inherently
public person
who already has a contract for 375 million over 10 years? To
be the number one. Analyst at Fox whenever he decides to stop
playing, what would that be something? If Greg Olsen gets
a tap on the shoulder that he's back down to the number two
team, before
he even works a game is number one. But when you do that,
I think, at some point, you have an obligation
to use your own voice
to use your own fingers to type, something to let people
know that, everything's fine and I'll be back on X or
I appreciate all the well. Wishes, we're fine, you know,
whatever. He's forcing the Buccaneers to deal with this.
I think that's the other Part of it, that just makes it.
Unusual unprecedented and something that invites curiosity.
Why has he been silent? What in the world is going on? Here's
the last thing. I'll say about it because I have no idea
what's happening. No one's talking about it.
The.
Issue first began.
It wasn't last, Thursday, he missed three days of practice
starting with his birthday, which was supposedly
a pre-planned day off. Because if you, if you're 45 in the NFL,
you know, you get the day off. Yeah, you've earned that much.
You don't have to show up for work on your 45th birthday,
but he wasn't in the next day or the day after that and then
he was back for four days of practice and then he launched
this
pre-planned absence from camp.
The absence of started the day after
everything, hit the fan, on the Dolphins tampering.
and if we're just looking for circumstantial evidence,
I don't know, I don't know what we're looking for,
I just know that what the timeline
tells me is that
before
The NFL announced to the world that the Dolphins had spent
four consecutive years while he was with two different teams
trying to get him to come play for Miami
and everything started after that.
How do we completely ignore a potential connection? You
can't? I don't know that there is,
but when you just look at the days, everything's fine.
Everything's fine. Everything's fine. He's showing up. He's
working, he's practicing, boom.
The Dolphins tried to get him and he wanted to play for
the Dolphins.
Next three days. He's not there back for four days. Gone for
a week and we don't know who's going to come back. I just
think it's another
item of curiosity
in a broader issue
that we all are justifiably curious about
And we talked about DeShaun Watson the next press
conference. What's Tom Brady's next press conference gonna
look like Mike because he hasn't answered any of those
Dolphins questions yet and he hasn't and then he's going to
have the questions about where he's been what he's been doing.
There's a lot to ask
Tom Brady and you know what?
He is really good at taking one question and making a 5-minute
answer that has nothing to do with the question. I suspect
there won't be very many questions.
Ins and there won't be very many real answers but there is
a whole lot to ask Tom, Brady when he comes back and has that
first press conference back. Hey, we know how it goes and
it's Tom Brady. It's like tiptoeing down the hallway to
The Wizard of Oz. And I it's easy for us to say oh go in
there and ask a tough question. Jack is we're not the ones who
have to do it. It would not be easy to do in that first press
conference. And as a result, we're not going to get much.