There is more to the surprising Tom Brady story than what we first heard, according to NFL reporter Ian Rapoport.
UFC owner Dana White said this weekend that the Las Vegas Raiders had a chance to get Brady and Rob Gronkowski but then-Raiders head coach Jon Gruden decided against it.
This isn’t how it actually went down, according to Rapoport, who appeared on The Pat McAfee Show on Monday. The NFL insider says that the main reason the Raiders didn’t move on acquiring Brady and Gronk was because of money.
“They (the Raiders) did investigate, they did look into it, I know that,” Rapoport said. “Once it came down to talking money, they were out, and I know they never made an offer. They danced around it but never made an offer.
“We all knew that there was some interest in the Raiders, we knew that Brady was interested in the Raiders. And there were some reports at the time around the Super Bowl that Brady could be with the Raiders and that there was some interest. All of this had been out there. Now, was it a done deal as was said on the Gronkcast or whatever? I don’t think so.”
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He continued to say that the price might have been too high for the Raiders and they decided to stick with Derek Carr.
“To my understanding, once it became clear that he was going to have to actually give real money to Brady, and it’s not a lot, but it’s a lot for a quarterback that – it seems crazy because now he’s so good and he’s still so good and he’ll probably be good until he’s 60, but back then we didn’t know that he would still be good,” said Rapoport.
Brady would go on to win another Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, so the Raiders, like the rest of the NFL, found out that, yes, Tom Brady was still good.