The Brady-to-Dolphins Chatter: Why It's Come Up, Why It's Unlikely
In this craziest of NFL offseasons, it's become imprudent to ever say never, which is why a social media post regarding Tom Brady and the Miami Dolphins has garnered so much attention.
The post came from Boston media personality Dale Arnold, who simply stated he wouldn't be surprised if Brady ended up playing not in Tampa in 2022, but somewhere south.
Arnold then doubled down on it through Boston radio show Merloni & Fauria, stating that the parties were "working on it." The radio show also suggested it was Arnold who first broke the story of Brady signing with the Buccaneers in the first place in 2020.
The idea of Brady joining the Dolphins makes sense in some ways, given that he's building a house on the exclusive island of Indian Creek near Miami Beach and given his reported friendship with Dolphins owner-in-waiting Bruce Beal Jr.
And then, of course, there was the allegation made by Brian Flores in his lawsuit against the NFL (and the Dolphins) of tampering with a pending free agent still under contract, a player widely reported to have been Brady.
Adding Brady to an offense that just added Tyreek Hill and Terron Armstead would make the Dolphins instant Super Bowl contenders, so trying to make that deal makes all the sense in the world from the Miami standpoint.
But there's the flip side, and that's Brady's commitment to the Buccaneers.
First off, he's under contract to Tampa Bay and the team would have to sign off on a trade and maybe the more logical argument against believing this could happen if that Brady made it a point to reach out to pending free agents after "un-retiring" to convince them to re-sign with the Bucs.
Jeff Howe, who covers the Patriots for The Athletic, has suggested there is nothing to the chatter about a trade being in the works to send Brady to Miami.
Of course, Brady will be a free agent next offseason and the idea of him joining the Dolphins certainly will come up again if he wants to continue playing and if Tua Tagovailoa doesn't step up his game considerably in 2022 and stamps himself as the team's quarterback of the future.
As it is, there's already been a lot of chatter about him assuming some sort of ownership role with the Dolphins at some point and maybe that starts off with him as a player as well.
But that conversation again will become moot if Tagovailoa emerges as a bona fide franchise quarterback in 2022.
Brady, meanwhile, likely will be trying for a second Super Bowl title in three years with Tampa Bay, barring an unforeseen turn of events.
We'd slam the door shut on the idea completely except that, again, this has been a crazy NFL offseason already and this would become almost par for the course this month.
