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Tom Brady reportedly helped recruit free agent wide receiver Russell Gage to the Bucs.
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Brady had been out of retirement for one day when he told Gage the Bucs were building something “special.”
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Brady’s QB coach said the 44-year-old returned with a list of areas for the team to improve.
Improving the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ receiving corps was apparently on Tom Brady’s to-do list.
Brady on Sunday announced that he is returning to the NFL to play a 23rd season, less than two months after retiring.
According to NFL Network’s Peter Schrager, free agent wide receiver Russell Gage had several options to choose from in free agency. Brady, then just one day out of retirement, reportedly called Gage to say the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were “building something special.”
Gage agreed to join the Bucs on a three-year, $30 million contract.
For a player who was seemingly done with football for the past month, Brady has apparently been thinking pretty hard about what the Bucs need to get back to the Super Bowl.
Bucs QB coach Clyde Christensen told Ric Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times that Brady had a list of areas to improve when he spoke to Christensen hours after announcing his return.
“It felt like the morning after we had just lost to the Rams,” Christensen told the Tampa Bay Times. “He had a list. He said, ‘Here’s how we can be better.’ I think he had been out of retirement 12 hours or so by then.
“The first thing he said was he didn’t want to go out that way. He wanted to make sure we do everything to win it all next year.”
Brady’s return has had an impact on the Bucs’ free agency moves. Cornerback Carlton Davis re-signed with the Buccaneers and told Stroud that Brady’s return factored into his decision to return to Tampa Bay.
“Who wouldn’t want to come back and compete for another ring with the GOAT?” Davis said, according to Stroud. “When I heard the news, it definitely played into some of my thought process going into my decision.”
With the 2022 season potentially being Brady’s last, it seems he is determined to make his farewell tour a final Super Bowl run.
“He has a great vision of where he sees this thing going,” Christensen told Stroud.
Read the original article on Insider