FOXBOROUGH — Tom Brady’s words, fewer than 48 hours after they were spoken, have been sliced and diced into tiny little pieces.
There were several areas in which he was clear when he spoke to the media Friday. And one thing took zero clairvoyance to make out.
This Tom Brady isn’t the “skinny beanpole of a kid’’ that Patriots owner Robert Kraft waxed poetic on in that morning’s New York Times.
This Tom Brady is a businessman, and is approaching his contract negotiation with the kind of savvy eye his bosses have always had on the mountaintop of professional football’s cutthroat world. And to borrow a phrase Brady’s coach, Bill Belichick, is fond of, the quarterback clearly sees it’s time to “do business as business is being done.’’
Rookie Sam Bradford came to terms with the Rams late Friday night. According to a league source, his deal is for six years, could be worth up to $86 million, and has $50 million in rock-solid guarantees.
That’s the same Bradford who played in two games during his final year at Oklahoma, blew out his throwing shoulder in both of them, and finished neither. He has yet to take an NFL snap.
Those are the same Rams who, for now, don’t have an owner and have been floated as a possible target for Los Angeles developers trying to lure a team to Southern California.
Yet they got a deal done, and while some might think that could incite bejeweled, franchise quarterbacks such as Brady or Peyton Manning or Drew Brees, it was probably more likely to prompt a high five.
The labor situation may still be a mess. But business, by the looks of it, is being done just fine, and there’s a certain businessman who wears No. 12 that has little problem with that.
“That’s the way the system’s been and who knows what will happen in the future?’’ Brady said yesterday about Bradford’s deal, on Sirius NFL Radio. “As players, we want the money going to the players. If it’s rookies, it’s rookies. If it’s veterans, it’s veterans.’’
Brady added that he would have little problem with a rookie wage scale being introduced, as long as it didn’t allow owners to spend less on players. In other words, if Bradford was going to make $10 million guaranteed rather than $50 million, that spare $40 million better not go back in the owner’s pocket.
“If a team would reallocate the money and spend it on veterans, [then yes],’’ Brady said. “But if every team is going to spend under the cap, then it doesn’t make a lot of sense.’’
What also doesn’t make much sense is Brady and Manning ignoring what just happened with Bradford, and after hearing Brady talk, it’s clear he’s got a pretty good understanding of the signing’s meaning.
