After 20 years in New England, legendary quarterback Tom Brady is leaving the Patriots to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
TB is going to TB. How weird does that sound?
The 42-year-old Brady announced Tuesday morning that he would not be returning to New England for the 2020 NFL season and thanked the organization and Patriots fans for two decades of incredible memories.
Those memories include nine trips to the Super Bowl, an unprecedented six Super Bowl rings, 17 division titles and an NFL record 11 consecutive AFC East crowns.
“I don’t know what my football future holds, but it is time for me to open a new stage for my life and my careers,” Brady wrote on Instagram.
2020 will mark the first time since Brady entered the league at the start of the new millennium that he will play for a head coach not named Bill Belichick.
Brady and Belichick are synonymous with the Patriots, as well as winning Super Bowls, but each will find out that life without the other will be, well, weird.
Brady is going to a Bucs team with a top-3 offence led by with 1,000-yard receivers Mike Adams and Chris Goodwin, talented tight ends O.J. Howard and Cameron Brate, and promising running back Ronald Jones.
With Brady gone, Belichick must now find his replacement and I don’t think 2019 fourth-round draft pick Jarrett Stidham is going to be the answer, but there are other starting QB options out there for New England, including Andy Dalton and Nick Foles.
We are a long way from finding out whether Brady or Belichick will have the last laugh, but wouldn’t it be something if the Buccaneers and Patriots met in Super Bowl 55?
The game, by the way, is in Tampa Bay.