Tom Brady needs some time away for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers right now, reportedly due to some “personal” things he needs to handle. The team announced that the seven-time Super Bowl champion QB was excused from training camp and will not be returning to the team for several weeks. The Buccaneers currently are in the middle of joint practices with the Miami Dolphins before they play each other in a preseason game on Saturday.
“Tom has been excused today,” Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles said on Thursday. “He will be taking anywhere…he will be back sometime around after [the] Tennessee [preseason game]. He’s going to deal with some personal things.” This is not a surprise to the team as this was planned before training camp began. With Brady gone, the Buccaneers will go to Blaine Gabbert, Kyle Trask and Ryan Giffin as their quarterbacks for the preseason.
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“This is something we talked about before training camp started,” Bowles stated. “We allotted this time because he wanted to get in and chemistry with the guys and go through two weeks of training camp. Knowing he wasn’t going to play the first two games he didn’t want to take away reps from Blaine and Kyle, as well as Griff, as far as going into these next two games. It’s something that he needs to handle. We trust him. We talked about it – it was scheduled way before training camp and he will not be here until after Tennessee.”
Brady is back with the Buccaneers after announcing his retirement in February. He then announced his return in March and turned 45 years old earlier this month. The Buccaneers are one of the teams favored to win the Super Bowl after winning the title in 2020 and reaching the divisional round of the playoffs last year.
“I think I’m part crazy,” Brady told Dan Patrick on The Dan Patrick Show in June. “I mean, I think that’s the reality. Forty-five years old and I’m out here with a lot of young guys that are trying to take my head off. I see Aaron Donald work out on my Instagram, and I’m like, damn, maybe I should’ve stayed retired because he’s a beast. But I had the appetite to compete, and it’s going to be gone soon. I mean, there’s no doubt about it and I gotta, you know, just really appreciate the time I have left because it’s not a lot.”
