Five years ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' franchise was turned upside down when Tom Brady agreed to come play for the team.
The Buccaneers would win a Super Bowl in their first year with him under center, and they'd win a franchise-record 13 games the year after in 2021. And while 2022 didn't quite go as planned, there's a very good argument to be had that Brady leading the Bucs to their first playoff appearance in 13 changed the culture of the team for the better, as it hasn't lost the NFC South since Brady left.
Brady recently opened up a bit on why he made the decision to come to Tampa Bay in his newsletter, 199. He started off by saying that tensions were rising high in New England, and even late into his career, he felt it was time for a change.
"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," Brady wrote. "It was the kind of tension that could only be resolved by some kind of split or one of us reassessing our priorities."
Brady explained how he went about his free agency. He wrote that he made a list of around twenty things, and that he would go on to rate all of those things on a scale from 1 to 3 and add them up. While financials weren't super high on his list, the players and staff he would be playing with and the environment was, and Tampa Bay had all of those things in spades.
"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... 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 certainly ended up being a good decision. Brady would win his seventh Super Bowl ring and cement his status as the GOAT, and though his time in Tampa Bay was short, it will always be remembered for its success. It worked out for the Bucs, too, as they're still riding off the energy of his run.
Brady will likely be known as a New England Patriot by most, due to the incredible things he did with that franchise. But Buccaneers fans won't forget his contributions to Tampa Bay after he made that key decision years ago.
