NFL Rumors: League Scouts Starting To Worry About Tom Brady’s Sustainability
February 14, 2020
NFL Rumors: League Scouts Starting To Worry About Tom Brady’s Sustainability
Tom Brady is reportedly looking for a new contract and somewhere around $30 million a year, but some league scouts are wondering if he will make it long enough for the price to be worth it.
As the longtime New England Patriots quarterback is prepared to hit the open market for the first time in his career, there has been plenty of speculation about where he might end up and how much he could be getting a in a new deal. Though at the age of 42 Brady is in mostly uncharted territory, with few peers ever playing into their 40s, Brady has shown little signs of decline in recent years.
But scouts think it may not stay that way forever. As NFL Media’s Mike Giardi said on Thursday, many NFL insiders are worried that he will start to see a decline.
“I’ve been talking to a bunch of different people from around the league and front offices,” Giardi said. “And they’ve said, ‘Look, he’s still a good quarterback, capable of great moments.’ But the one thing that they all said to me, and I think this kind of sticks out — and maybe how they feel here in Foxboro — was ‘sustainability.’ ”
“Because he’s had a lot of issues over the last two years, physically. And no, he doesn’t miss games, but it’s impacted his performance. … Usually, when you turn 43, those things don’t get easier — they get harder to deal with.”
Peyton Manning faces a similar decline in his final season, posting some of the lowest numbers of his career.
If other teams share concerns that Brady could be on the decline, it may affect his prospects for a new contract. There is speculation that Brady wants to go to a team that can immediately compete for a Super Bowl and has been linked to close to a dozen others, but so far the future Hall of Famer has remained closely guarded about his intentions for next year.
There are growing indications that he won’t be staying in New England. As The Inquisitr noted, his former teammate Christian Fauria said Brady appears to be “100 percent done” with the Patriots and ready to move on to his next stop. Others noted that Brady appeared to be preparing for the move even before the season ended. Both the quarterback and his longtime trainer put their Boston-area homes up for sale, and Brady often put off questions from reporters about whether he would commit to the Patriots for another season.