Simms: Race for Brady down to Buccaneers, Patriots

The rumor mill is getting hot and legal tampering hasn’t even begun yet.

Chris Simms, former Buccaneers quarterback and NFL analyst/insider for NBC, is reporting from everything he’s heard that the race for Tom Brady has come down to two teams; the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots.

Simms tweeted out a video (recorded prior to the Ryan Tannehill deal but released after) that he’s reached out to multiple teams and sources and from the information he’s gathered, those are the two teams that are going to be throwing down over the six time Super Bowl champion.

Simms said;

“I’ve talked to a number of people throughout the NFL and gotten some information on the Tom Brady free agency situation.

The 49ers are out on Tom Brady. That’s not gonna happen. My understanding is that was Tom Brady’s number one choice was to go to San Francisco and be the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. I don’t know what happened, but something happened in the last few days to cause the 49ers to be out.

I think it is down to this, from everything I’ve heard, it’s down to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New England Patriots. I don’t think the Patriots are going to be willing to give Brady $30 million a year. As we know, Bill Belichick drives a hard bargain, he treats it like a business no matter who it is, even if it’s the goat.

So, between Tampa Bay - who I would bet would be willing to spend bigger money on Tom Brady and maybe give him $30 million per yer, as opposed to New England who is probably going to offer him something in the $20 million range because we can’t forget that Brady is going to cost them $13 million against the cap no matter whether he’s on the team or not so that’s why they want to find a manageable number.

So, as I understand it right now, it’s Tampa Bay or New England for Tom Brady.”

Simms went on to predict that Brady would return to New England - based solely on his opinion, not information he gathered - to see if they can make one more run at a title together.

You can check out the video here, but it looks like it’s a two horse race where the winner receives a goat.