NFL News | June 1, 2010

Growing disconnect in Brady, Patriots contract talks

By Michael Silver
June 1, 2010


Boston, MA — Tom Brady is back in Boston this week, participating in offseason training activities for the New England Patriots and preparing for what he hopes will be another Super Bowl run. While most of the region’s sports fans are immersing themselves in the NBA Finals and chanting “Beat L.A.,” New England’s most beloved sports hero will be a fixture at the Pats’ training facility in Foxborough, planning to hang around at least through the team’s June 15-17 minicamp.

Then Brady will likely return to Los Angeles, where he has spent the bulk of his time since the Pats’ 33-14 playoff defeat to the Baltimore Ravens last January, and where he and his wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, are having a sizeable home built.

Make no mistake – there has been a cool distance between Brady, who turns 33 in August, and the organization over the past few months, and not just of the physical variety.

Entering the final year of the $60 million contract he signed before the 2005 season, Brady would seem to be in line for a lucrative extension that would make him one of the league’s highest-paid players. Yet three months before the start of the 2010 campaign, and less than two months before training camp, there have been no substantial talks between his agents (Don Yee and Steve Dubin) and the Pats’ front office, and there’s a growing sense of disconnect between the two camps.

Brady declined to comment, saying he is uncomfortable discussing the subject. Last week New England owner Robert Kraft expressed confidence that the two sides would get a deal done, telling the Boston Globe, “We’re very lucky to have him as our quarterback and we want him to be our quarterback for a long time into the future.”

However, wanting something to happen and making it so financially are two different animals, and some people close to Brady feel the organization isn’t displaying much urgency toward ensuring the latter. Conversely, the Patriots’ brass, now experiencing a third consecutive offseason in which their California-raised quarterback has spent a sizeable chunk of time away from the team’s facility, would probably welcome some assurances that the quarterback is content to remain on the East Coast.

It would help if the two sides started talking, but right now there is insecurity in the air. With the specter of a work stoppage following the 2010 season looming, Brady’s situation seems entwined with the uncertain labor landscape, to the point where he could be angling toward prospective free agency after a new collective bargaining agreement is reached.

My instincts tell me this is a remote possibility. Brady and Kraft have a strong relationship and a mutual appreciation for one another’s contributions toward the franchise’s decade-long run as the NFL’s most successful franchise. And even though there’s no guarantee that teams will still be allowed to retain the rights of at least one unrestricted free agent via the “franchise” tag once the current CBA expires, it’s hard to imagine Kraft, one of the league’s most powerful owners, signing off on a deal that could expose him to the departure of his best player.

Chances are, Brady will remain with the Pats long past 2010, and this will go down as a business-driven blip in their relationship.

Yet the Patriots, more than many franchises, seem to be making a concerted effort toward minimizing costs heading into the final year of the current CBA, and Brady, the team’s assistant player rep, is at least nominally aligned with the NFL Players Association as it prepares for a possible lockout. It’s hard not to view the apparent stagnation in Brady’s contract talks through the prism of labor uncertainty.

From the team’s perspective, New England’s loyalty to Brady has been unwavering since he became the starter in 2001 and guided the Pats to the first of three Super Bowl triumphs in four seasons. Even after Brady tore up his knee in the first game of 2008, and backup Matt Cassel performed well as his replacement, the organization declined to entertain speculative trade offers for the 2007 league MVP, instead applying the franchise tag to Cassel and dealing him to Kansas City.

Brady, however, can’t help but notice the way that the only NFL quarterback who can be considered his peer, Peyton Manning, has been treated by the Colts’ ownership.

Manning, who signed a reported $99.2 million contract extension in 2004 that will void after the 2010 season, looks to be in line for another unprecedented payday: Last February, five days before the Colts’ Super Bowl XLIV defeat to the New Orleans Saints, Indy owner Jimmy Irsay said of a contract extension, “You know it’s going to get done. I think it’s clear, and we’ll start on it this summer. … And it’ll be the biggest [contract] in history; there’s not much doubt about that.”

Contrast that with the comments Kraft made to reporters in March at the NFL owner meetings in Orlando about a potential Brady extension: “Great things happen in life if you’re flexible and not rigid. … We’re balancing a lot of different factors in an unknown environment. We’re not sleeping. It’s just complicated.”

It is frequently reported that, upon signing his current six-year deal in ’05, Brady took less than his perceived market value – and significantly less per season than Manning – as a means of allowing the Patriots more financial flexibility to surround him with a strong supporting cast. In fairness, this was not necessarily foist upon him; though he almost certainly could have gotten more from the Pats, the quarterback targeted a deal which, he felt, would ensure that the franchise remained competitive.

Would he do that again this time around? It’s difficult to gauge, but there’s certainly a sense that the Pats aren’t spending as aggressively as they could be, quite possibly because they believe a work stoppage is on the way.

Though the team signed nose tackle Vince Wilfork to a reported five-year, $40-million extension in March, the deal was preceded by a contentious period in which Wilfork said he would regard the impending application of the franchise tag as “a slap in the face.” Two-time Pro Bowl guard Logan Mankins, a restricted free agent, remains unsigned, and more than 30 New England players, including star wideout Randy Moss, are entering the final year of their contracts.

Moss is due to make $6.4 million this season, about $100,000 less than what Brady will command via salary ($3.5 million) and roster bonus ($3 million). That’s a stunningly low figure for a quarterback of Brady’s stature. However, it should be noted that Brady received $31.5 million in the first two years of his heavily frontloaded deal.

Money may not be the sole factor at play here. Brady, once a fixture at OTAs, drastically altered his offseason approach following 2007 season, which ended with the 18-0 Pats being stunned by the Giants in Super Bowl XLII. Brady’s decision to spend much of his offseason time in Los Angeles coincided with the August ’07 birth of his son, Jack, from a prior relationship with actress and L.A. resident Bridget Moynihan. (Brady and Bundchen have a 6-month-old son named Benjamin.)

To Brady’s credit, he is highly motivated by a desire to be close to his elder son, even though Kraft told ESPNBoston.com in March he’d prefer that Brady “be here the whole offseason” and it’s reasonable to conclude that coach Bill Belichick feels similarly.

Are the coach and quarterback like-minded in terms of leadership matters? That seemed to be the case last month when Brady told Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, “We’ve got to start listening more to coach Belichick. We’ve got young kids who are good players. We’ve got the best football coach of all time. He’s got the answers. We as a team have to take the teaching and coaching we’re being given. … We need to see the toughness. We need to see the commitment. Can we take the coaching?”

Three days later, news broke that the Pats would re-sign defensive end Derrick Burgess, a player whose commitment has been questioned in the Pats’ locker room and who last December was one of four players sent home by Belichick after showing up late to a team meeting. The move seemed to be in direct contrast to the public message Brady had just delivered.

None of this is a legitimate indication that Brady would prefer to leave Boston, but that might change if an NFL franchise were to relocate to L.A. in the next few years. Or perhaps he’d be tempted to try to play for the 49ers, the team for which he grew up rooting in nearby San Mateo.

Could things really get that ugly? Say no agreement on an extension is reached before the start of the 2010 campaign and Brady, as is likely, tables any contract discussions until the season is complete. Even if he wanted to leave via unrestricted free agency, the Pats would surely franchise him. At that point Brady could threaten to stay away until the 10th week of the season before signing his one-year tender, surrendering only a pro-rated share of his salary and potentially extending the stalemate into another offseason. It’s possible such a nightmarish state of affairs could compel the Pats to consider trading him.

I don’t believe it will come to this. I think the Krafts want Brady to stay with the team for the foreseeable future, and my sense is that he’ll put aside his desire to play near both of his sons and embrace a return to the organization.

Yet I can’t tell you this with any degree of certainty, and Brady and Kraft can’t, either, which is not an insignificant byproduct of a shifty NFL labor situation.

This much, however, is clear: Until the two sides get together and enter into serious negotiations, the distance will persist, whether Brady is in Boston, L.A. or somewhere in between.

•  NFL News Archive Index:
2010, 2009
•  NFL Tickets
•  Super Bowl Tickets