When the going got tough for an aging Tom Brady in New England the Hall of Fame quarterback took his talents to Tampa Bay.
He joined forces with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Devin White, Lavonte David, Shaq Barrett and the rest of an already loaded Bucs roster under the direction of willingly-subservient, loyal and offensive-minded coach Bruce Arians.
Brady then added to the mix by calling on All-Pro playmaking pals Rob Gronkowski and Antonio Brown, while his presence clearly lured Leonard Fournette, subsequently known as Lombardi Lenny.
Brady built a superteam around himself that indeed won a Super Bowl.
It’s a player/GM plan that would make LeBron James blush, even as it played out to near perfection.
It’s also really bad news for the NFL because Pandora ’s Box is now open. The league and its superstar quarterbacks, long the centerpieces of its franchises, are seemingly sledding down a slippery slope this winter.
Former No. 1 overall pick quarterback Matthew Stafford already asked and received his way out of Detroit. Can’t make your team a winner? Then find a team that can make you a winner!
Newly-anointed NFL Man of the Year Russell Wilson -- one of the highest paid quarterbacks in football who’s made the playoffs in eight of his nine seasons in a Seahawks uniform and owns a Super Bowl ring for his efforts -- apparently wants more organizational say and more talent around him or he may sulkily leverage his way out of Seattle. Wonder where he got that idea?
The Jack Easterby-led organizational mission in Houston has 25-year-old superstar Deshaun Watson reportedly seeking a trade mere months after inking a $156 million extension with the Texans. Houston has a problem and it wasn’t just James Harden’s fat suit.
We are in the midst of what may be the most volatile NFL offseason the sport has ever seen. The tune is playing on the ultimate game of quarterback musical chairs, but unlike past years when that seat-swapping soiree included last-leg vets, mid-level talents and backups it’s now buoyed by budding star Hall of Fame talents.
It’s simultaneously sad and exciting. It’s also the kind of game that neither the NFL nor the NBA really ever wanted.
When the NBA salary cap came about in the 1980s it included the “Larry Bird exception” so that teams could surpass the cap to retain their own star free agents such as the Celtics Legend himself.
The NFL took a similar approach to limiting the movement of its stars when it created its own salary cap in the 1990s, devising a franchise tag for teams to place on star players to limit their ability to move on. It was tactic that could have easily been called the John Elway rule to keep tent-pole talents like the Broncos quarterback from taking those talents elsewhere.
Over the years, though, the NBA lost control of its superstars. James’ “Decision” to leave a Cleveland team that drafted him No. 1 overall to pursues a championship by joining forces with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami essentially saw players rewrite the unwritten rules of team building.
It’s also really the only “superteam” built prior to this year that actually worked out.
The 2011 Eagles “Dream Team” finished 8-8.
The bought-and-paid-for Washington squads from the 2000s never lived up to the financial hype.
Even in the NBA -- where James mastered the modern player-driven team-building trend yet again this past fall pairing up with Anthony Davis to win a title with the Lakers – superstar-driven transactions have failed more often than not. Harden, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving and plenty of others can attest to that. (Forget Kevin Durant, he didn’t build a superteam in Golden State, he joined a home-grown squad that had already rolled right over him on the way to a previous title. Of course he’s trying his hand at things again with Irving and Harden in Brooklyn. Stay tuned!)
To this point, only grazing GOATs defying Father Time like Brady and James have proven that the superteam model can work.
Which brings us back to the NFL and this offseason that certainly could be the most memorable in football history as the league continues to fulfill its desires to be atop the headlines 365 days as year.
But at what cost?
It’s fun to talk about many of your top stars and franchise-foundation quarterbacks moving around in March. But what happens when all those new faces in new places actually have to play games in September?
Arians admitted in the postgame glow of Super Bowl glory that it was a bumpy road for Brady and his offense at times this fall in Tampa. TB12 didn’t know the Bucs playbook or verbiage when the season started. In the end his legendary work ethic and mind for the game pulled it altogether.
But will the same be true on a more widespread level non-GOATs? Almost certainly not.
More likely, with half the league taking part in the QB pursuits it will end poorly for everyone involved. Ugly, disjointed, dysfunctional football here we come!
Football isn’t basketball. It’s the ultimate team sport built on 11 guys working in the same direction for the same goals over an extended period of time. Continuity matters. Reliability matters. Culture matters. Even coaching is key.
In basketball, if you show up with the best player – whether it’s at your local Y or an NBA court -- you have a really good chance to win. James has proven that in every city he’s played for.
Despite what Brady did this season, it’s not that easy in football. It doesn’t work that way for mere mortals.
The NBA-ification of the NFL – driven by Brady, but also pushed behind the scenes by agents looking for more flexibility and power for their football clients over the years – is bad for the game. It could very well undermine the parity, stability and long term sustainability of the NFL product.
Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, predicted nearly a decade ago that greed would eventually undercut the seemingly unstoppable success and popularity of the NFL.
“Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered,” Cuban told reporters in 2014. “When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I’m just telling you, when you’ve got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That’s rule No. 1 of business.
“I’m just telling you: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they’re getting hoggy.”
When Cuban made the comments he was talking about the NFL’s TV rights and the league spreading its game out to more days of the week, potentially reaching a saturation point. In that way, he was wrong.
But if you interpret his words in a different way, in relation to the current state of affairs regarding quarterbacks unhappy with their current teams and looking for the easy way out elsewhere, Cuban’s comments might be dead on in a way that he never envisioned.
Ironically, it’s actually an NBA mentality could undercut the NFL’s otherwise interminable popularity and growth.
And, at least partially given the copycat nature of professional sports, we may have Brady to thank for that.
