Bedard: Why Tom Brady doesn't have a new (or old) NFL home by now

Tom Brady waited nearly 20 years for this moment: the chance to talk to other NFL teams about being their starting quarterback.

He may be entering his 43-year-old season, but Brady is still one of the league's best, and he's just one year removed from winning the AFC Championship Game on the road, and his sixth Super Bowl.

So when the NFL's legal tampering period opened at noon on Monday, you figured Brady wouldn't last very long. His agent, Don Yee, had the combine and the time since to gauge the market. They had to have a gameplan and an end-game in mind.

But even before the tampering period came, the best landing spots began to disappear for Brady, and that continued on Monday.

The Titans and old buddy Mike Vrabel spent big money to lock up Ryan Tannehill.

The 49ers, through longtime Kyle Shanahan buddy Chris Simms, let it leak that the 49ers were out on Brady and sticking with with former Brady understudy Jimmy Garoppolo.

Then the Vikings inked Kirk Cousins to an extension that moved him from easily cuttable to no-doubt franchise QB.

The Raiders also signed Marcus Mariota to push Derek Carr at quarterback.

When you were drawing up dream destinations if you were Brady, the order would have been something along the lines of: 49ers and Titans, and then everyone else really, with the Raiders and Chargers likely leading the also-rans.

Now, it should be pointed out that nothing in the contracts of Garoppolo and Carr prevents the 49ers and Raiders from making another run at Brady now that all sides have had a chance to see the lay of the land after Day 1. It could happen.

But, really, Brady's likely options now all have some warts on them: the Buccaneers, Chargers, Dolphins and even some longshots like the Colts, Bears and Bills (if I'm the latter two, I'm definitely making a push for Brady, especially the Bears who were all over the QB market on Monday).

When you're a 43-year-old quarterback whose family and business are a priority, you'd really like more of a plug-and-play option. You wanted to go to a strong contending team to be the final piece to put them over the top and be in the mix for a Super Bowl in Year 1.

That was the 49ers and the Titans. Could be the Bears. That's not exactly the Bucs or Chargers or any of those other teams, although I'm sure many will argue the merits of each.

But, truthfully, this has not been a dream-trip into free agency with stacks of money being thrown at Brady from Super Bowl contenders to this point. Things can and usually do change when it comes to NFL contracts and money, but this is not Brady's ideal scenario.

So what the heck happened?

It has to do with the percentages. And I didn't realize this until I spoke with an informed NFL source who has been involved in the Brady deliberations.

He may be the GOAT and the only other professional athlete aside from Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods who have made a career out of defying the odds. But this time, the NFL feels the percentages are decidedly against Brady.

It's probably because I quickly learned covering the Patriots to never, ever count out Brady. You sort of hear that from afar, but until you see him operate on a daily basis and study his play and heroics up close, you don't understand how he's probably the greatest competitor in professional team sports history. There are so many games and championships he shouldn't have won over the years, they're too numerous to mention. You know them by heart.

And you just think they're going to go on forever. But NFL people who don't worship at the altar of Brady on a daily basis, they don't subscribe to the mythology of Brady, even though us true believers swear by it.

This is how they look at Brady:

- He's going to be 43 years old. He has already soared past any reasonable expectations for a 42-year-old quarterback. Brady has already defied the odds and Father Time to this point. Now he's going to be a year older, diminishing the odds of him continuing to be a difference-maker.

- He has increasingly been dinged up the past two seasons to the point Brady has missed a lot of practice time, as Bill Belichick pointed out when talking up Stid The Kid. That's mostly fine when you're operating the same offense for 20 years, but that becomes a big problem when your acclimation into a new offense, or tailoring the offense to you is going to determine the fate of the football team.

- Speaking of that new offense and the unfamiliar talent around you, going to a new team would require an inordinate amount of time with Brady in the building and on the practice field during the offseason and during the season (to say nothing about the influence of Covid-19 on all this). Is Brady really going to do that? The track record of quarterbacks taking a team to the Super Bowl in their first season is not good. The last to do it were Jake Delhomme (2003) and Trent Dilfer (2000).

- Brady's gamefilm the past two seasons was about the same, and most don't see the same player who used to win with whatever talent was around him because he could lift those players and the team by himself.

- On top of all that, now you're going to invest multiple years and at least $25 million per season guaranteed to Brady?

That was part of the thinking for teams like the 49ers and Titans, according to league sources. It led them back to Garoppolo and Tannehill. Sounds preposterous — Brady compared to them — in a vacuum, doesn't it?

But when you really step back and look objectively at it, you can see their point. The odds are already low at 43. Then factor in injuries and practice time. A new offense and personnel to get used to when you're the ultimate perfectionist about both. Good, but declining gamefilm. The cost.

The odds just continue to get worse. So they were out.

Brady has made a Hall of Fame career and a bulletproof legacy out of winning when put into spots similar to these. He might just sign with the Bucs, Chargers or another mystery team, be refreshed, and find a way to win another Super Bowl while New England crumbles.

That would be typical Brady.

But most other teams don't think he can do it again. Or, at least they're not going to risk the future of their franchise — or more importantly their own jobs — to bet on the longshot in the No. 12 jersey.