It’s wild to consider where Tom Brady could land in free agency. But the favorite to land the quarterback might just be the New England Patriots, who can spend the next few months negotiating with the quarterback.
During an appearance on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni & Fauria” on Friday, Mike Lombardi shared his take on Brady’s impending free agency. Lombardi is a contributor on The Athletic, and also served as a Patriots executive under Bill Belichick. Lombardi reminded folks that Brady could return to the franchise where he got famous, where he has won six Super Bowls, where he won three MVPs and where he has received 14 Pro Bowl nods. Still, an agreement between Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots is anything but simple.
“It takes the Kraft family — Robert and Jonathan — it takes Bill, if Josh (McDaniels) is still there, it takes Josh, and it will take Tom Brady and Don Yee to get into a room and say, ‘Here is where we are fellas.’ There’s no miscommunication. This is what we can do. This is what we can’t do. This is the vision of the team moving forward,” Lombardi said. “It doesn’t really make sense to engage in contract talks if you don’t agree with the vision. I think you have to have that meeting. It is too early to have that meeting now because everything is so raw from losing to Tennessee. Everything is so raw from having in Patriot world a bad season. Most people would love to be 12-4. The Patriots, because they have had 71 wins over the last five years, think 12-4 is a bad year.
“I would take time away, come back in and get everybody in the room at the same time and say, ‘OK, here is where we are. Here’s where we’re going. Here’s where we think we need to be and let’s see if this works.’”
Lombardi was asked for a few potential landings spots for Brady, if he did leave the Patriots. He listed the most obvious answers.
“The Chargers make sense in theory because they need to put people in Los Angeles, a city of stars, they need to put people in those seats,” he said, via WEEI. “They need to sell luxury seats. They need to be able to sell premium seat licenses and the Chargers don’t have a star. They don’t have a star. And I think because they share a stadium, they need cache attached to the team. In theory, that makes sense.
“In theory, it makes sense in Las Vegas even though they are having no trouble selling out their games, Las Vegas is an ideal place. The Raiders have a really good offensive line. I don’t know how Jon (Gruden) and Tom would get along and see eye-to-eye, but I could see that being another place. I think Indianapolis, because of the offensive line, and playing indoors and all those things. I could see that being a good place. But again, this is all in theory.”
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