Clearly, Tom Brady was the difference in turning a 7-9 Buccaneers team in 2019 to a Super Bowl winning team in 2020.
In the days since the win, one of the major storylines has been how Bruce Arians and Co. gave Brady a ton of freedom and input into decisions, which is something he didn't have much of in New England.
Appearing on Dale & Keefe Thursday, Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times gave some more insight on that.
“There wasn’t much that he wanted that they weren’t going to give him," he said. "I think you have to value his 20 years of experience before he got here. They requested one thing of him and that is, 'You learn this offense. You learn the terminology.' They didn’t want to teach 22 players his offense and that was a big sacrifice. He was trying to remember plays on the way to New Orleans. ‘What do they call that again? What does this guy do on this play?’ It was a big sacrifice for him after 20 seasons in one system.
“But when Tom Brady said, ‘I’d really like to have Rob Gronkowski,’ they went about it and made the trade with New England for his rights. … I think it came from the organization about Leonard Fournette and he was like, ‘Yeah, I am all about it.’ Antonio Brown had been a discussion. You look at the Super Bowl and two touchdowns by Gronk, one by Fournette and one by Antonio Brown, and none of those guys were on the roster when Tom got here. He knows guys who can help him function, and it’s not that Mike Evans or Chris Godwin or Scotty Miller and guys who were already here didn’t play at a high level in the Super Bowl and didn’t help them, but I do think guys will come here to win a ring because Brady is the quarterback. And two, you want to make sure you surround him with somebody he knows and is comfortable with because he really didn’t know anyone when he showed up.”
The Buccaneers will certainly have roster changes this offseason, but it also wouldn't be a surprise to see Brady get some players to take less money in order to join him in Tampa Bay.
