How Tom Brady Can Make A Comeback In 2022 With Another Team

Tom Brady’s career may not be over just yet.

Less than three weeks after announcing his decision to retire after 22 years, speculation has already emerged that Brady’s retirement may be temporary.

It also hasn’t helped that Brady himself left the idea open so soon after announcing his decision to retire during an appearance on the Let’s Go! podcast with Jim Gray.

“I’m just going to take things as they come. I think that’s the best way to put it, and I don’t think anything, you know, you never say never,” Brady said on their “Let’s Go!” podcast. “At the same time, I know that … I feel very good about my decision. I don’t know how I’ll feel six months from now.

Those comments came just six days after he announced his retirement on social media. Six months from now obviously signals the beginning of training camp in time for the 2022 season.

Rumors have persisted in the weeks following Brady’s retirement that the 44-year-old quarterback retired earlier than expected due to his unhappiness with the current situation with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Believing that the Buccaneers do not present an ideal situation to make another run for a championship, Brady called it quits, say these reports.

One team emerging as a popular comeback option for Brady? None other than his hometown San Francisco 49ers.

It’s always been a dream of Brady’s to play for the team he grew up rooting for. Brady grew up in San Mateo, California, just 16 miles away from San Francisco. He hoped to be drafted by the 49ers during the 2000 NFL Draft and he aimed for the 49ers to sign him when he hit free agency for the first time in 2020.

Both times the 49ers passed on Brady.

This time around? It would be hard to envision a scenario where they would pass on the G.O.A.T. for a third time.

The 49ers are in the midst of making a transition at quarterback. The organization will look to shop quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in trade talks as they transition to 2021 first-round draft pick Trey Lance.

But if San Francisco has the opportunity to snag Brady for his final season — Brady has one year left on his deal with the Buccaneers — they’ll take that opportunity and allow Lance to sit one more season.

Such a scenario would work out to a perfect trade for the 49ers and Buccaneers. If Brady believes his best chance at one more Super Bowl is with San Francisco, the Buccaneers could swing a deal that would bring Garoppolo to Tampa Bay. To sweeten a potential deal, maybe you add a key player or a couple of draft picks to the Buccaneers in exchange for Brady.

The Buccaneers face an uncertain offseason as they’ll face a difficult time with their salary cap situation. Tampa Bay has a little less than $7 million in salary cap space entering the 2022 offseason, ranking 19th among all teams in the league.

That’s not even mentioning that the Buccaneers will have countless key free agents to re-sign, including Chris Godwin, Leonard Fournette, Ryan Jensen, Rob Gronkowski and Jason Pierre-Paul.

Considering their salary cap challenges, the Bucs are not going to be able to re-sign all of them.

The 49ers aren’t exactly in fantastic salary cap shape either — roughly $3 million in available cap space. However, $25 million of that will be freed up when San Francisco moves on from Garoppolo. Furthermore, unlike the Bucs, the 49ers don’t have many pressing free agents to re-sign.

So while the Bucs will struggle to bring back its core from the past two seasons, San Francisco will return the core that led them to within a game of the Super Bowl this past season.

Some are comparing the possibility of Brady returning out of retirement to play for another team similar to when Brett Favre did it. As a member of the New York Jets, Favre retired before returning to play for the Minnesota Vikings in 2009.

“Brett Favre did this exactly,” ESPN host Mike Greenberg said on his show, “Greeny”. “When Brett Favre was leaving Green Bay, he really wanted to go to Minnesota. There was no earthly way the Packers were going to trade him within their division, so he went and played a year for the [New York] Jets and played well and then retired knowing that the Jets would make other arrangements at quarterback, which they did.”

“And when Favre calls them up and says, ‘actually, I think I’m going to continue playing, they have no choice but to release him, and he gets to go exactly where he wanted to go, which was Minnesota,” Greenberg said. “I’m not saying that’s definitively what Brady is doing, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Brady is coming off of a 2021 campaign in which he led the league across the board in touchdowns, completions and passing yards. He finished as a runner-up to Aaron Rodgers in MVP voting.

Considering the success Brady just had in his most recent season and the fact that he always aimed to play until the age of 45, one has to believe that his career isn’t over just yet.