One of the best quarterbacks of all time is taking a brief break. Tom Brady of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers missed practice Thursday (Aug. 12) for personal reasons, and will not come back to the team until after the Buccaneers’ second preseason game on Aug. 20 vs. the Titans. However, this break seems to have been pre-planned.
Head coach Todd Bowles broke the news Thursday, telling reporters, “Tom has been excused today. He’ll be back sometime around after Tennessee. He’s going to deal with some personal things… This is something we talked about before training camp started. We allotted this time because he wanted to get in and get 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 (Gabbert) and Kyle (Trask), as well as (Ryan Griffin), as far as going into these next two games.”
But as NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk blog wrote, “The way it was handled invites curiosity. Which results in speculation. As the situation has been explained by the team, it can be anything from a scheduled family surgical procedure to a mid-camp vacation.” They also note that it’s not clear that Brady’s teammates knew about it in advance. The whole thing is somewhat unprecedented, particularly given the fact that Brady announced his retirment earlier this year and then changed his mind right after that.
Tampa Bay’s regular-season opener will take place on Sept. 11 against the Cowboys.