After officially retiring from football in February, Tom Brady has spent most of the offseason insisting that he's going to stay retired. Despite that, it wouldn't be surprising at all to see several teams reach out to the free agent QB in an effort to get him to return to the field this year.
With the first batch of training camps getting set to open next week, there haven't been any recent reports of a team contacting Brady, but one player does think his team might be interested and that player is Brady's former teammate, Antoine Winfield Jr.
During a recent interview on "The Richard Sherman Podcast," Winfield said he thinks the Bucs might have reached out to Brady to talk about a possible return.
"I'm sure we're still reaching out to him trying to see if he's trying to come back to the team," Winfield said the Buccaneers front office, via Joe Bucs Fan. "Hey, it could happen. Anything's possible."
At that point, Sherman responded by saying he wouldn't put anything past Brady and that's when Winfield offered one more thought on the situation.
"It's up in the air, man," Winfield said.
Winfield's rookie year was in 2020, which was the same year that Brady signed with the Buccaneers, so he got to spend three seasons with the NFL legend.
If Brady is going to return, the Buccaneers would obviously make a lot of sense. Not only does Brady already know the playbook, but he also has chemistry with Tampa Bay's receivers, including Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.
As things stand right now, though, it doesn't sound like Brady is interested in making a return. Just six weeks ago, he definitely sounded like a guy who planned to stay retired.
"I'm certain I'm not playing again," Brady said earlier this year. "I've tried to make that clear and I hate to continue to profess that because I've already told people that lots of times."
Although Brady said he's definitely not returning to the NFL, it's impossible to know what to believe at this point because he's also said the opposite. Back in April, Brady left the door slightly open when he was asked about a possible NFL return.
If Brady were to make a return, he would be free to sign with anyone since he's technically a free agent.
As for the Buccaneers, with Brady now retired, their starting QB job will be up for grabs at training camp with Baker Mayfield battling it out with Kyle Trask for the right to replace Brady.
