Future Hall-of-Fame quarterback Tom Brady gets a chance next season to show what he has left in the tank. For the first time in his career, it'll be away from the big bad empire of the New England Patriots. However, the new Tampa Bay Buccaneers signal-caller was warned by retired quarterback Boomer Esiason this week.
The ex-MVP of the Cincinnati Bengals cautioned how Brady's reputation could suffer now that he's away from head coach Bill Belichick and New England.
“What I really was, I was disappointed when I heard the news,” Esiason told WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” in a recent interview. “I wanted Tom to end (his career) a Patriot. And that is probably pretty selfish of me to think that way. But when you think of iconic players, iconic franchises and the greatest of all time, you’d like to see them run it all the way out through the end no matter how long it took. No matter how bad he might have played. Whatever the situation may have been, I would have loved to have seen him finish his career that way.
“Everything that I have heard and listened to and things that have been said by all parties, it just sounded to me like he wanted to go in a different place. And go somewhere and maybe not have the intense pressure of the relationship that he and Bill (Belichick) have during the season. I would just always tell him that the grass isn’t always greener elsewhere. And he will find out pretty quickly how things are different from one franchise to another.”
Brady signed a two-year, fully guaranteed $50 million contract with the Buccaneers in free agency this spring. It's the first time he exercised his free agency labor rights since joining the Patriots 20 years ago.
Esiason, meanwhile, is a New York media guy these days. He was once a breakout QB with the Bengals, winning the MVP award in 1988 and later joining the New York Jets via trade in the early 1990's to less success.
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