Morning sports update: Scott Pioli recalled what Tom Brady did to settle a 2005 contract negotiation
"Hey, if my family and I can't live on $60 million, there's really something wrong."
Tonight, the Celtics host the Warriors at TD Garden at 8 p.m.
And tomorrow, the Bruins return to the ice after the NHL All-Star break to face the Jets in Winnipeg at 8 p.m.
Scott Pioli’s story about another Tom Brady contract negotiation: The current leading story of the Patriots’ offseason is the uncertain status of Tom Brady. For the first time in his NFL career, the 42-year-old quarterback is set to become a free agent.
One of the reasons why this hasn’t happened before is Brady’s continual choice to take less money than he was worth on the open market in order to remain in New England and help the team be more competitive as a result.
In a recent interview with 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Felger & Mazz,” former Patriots front office executive Scott Pioli remembered another Brady contract negotiation.
“The year that we were actually going to have to pay him, I was negotiating with his agent Don Yee, and we were at one place and Don was at another place much higher,” Pioli recalled. “I think Peyton Manning had just gotten like $13 [million] a year, or 13.5 a year.”
In fact, Manning had been given a seven-year contract that paid him a then-record $14.17 million per season in 2004.
But while the two sides in the Brady-Patriots negotiation seemed far apart, New England’s quarterback decided to cut through the process with a personal conversation.
“I’ll never forget, Tommy came into my office one morning,” Pioli explained. “He comes in and closes the door, and he says, ‘Listen, can we just talk about this?’ I’ll cut through the long part of the details of the conversation. I said, ‘Tommy we’re not supposed to be having this conversation. I can’t negotiate with you.’ He’s like, ‘No, this is two friends talking. This isn’t a negotiation.’
“He talked about the numbers, and we talked about this number that was $10 million a year,” Pioli continued. “Six years, $60 million, that’s what this deal ended up being. And I’ll never forget, he looked at me, and I won’t give you the full language he used, and he said, ‘Hey, if my family and I can’t live on $60 million, there’s really something wrong.'”
This, as Pioli noted, was the turning point in the contract talks.
“He said, ‘I’m tired of this nonsense. Call Don.”
“That specific moment transcended,” said Pioli. “I knew how great of a team player he was. I knew how important everybody else was to him. That moment just took it to a new level.”
Brady eventually signed the discussed six-year deal worth $60 million in May, 2005.
Scott Pioli joins @FelgerAndMazz and shares a conversation he once had with Tom Brady that he’ll never forget pic.twitter.com/9oWVZoPsov
— NBC Sports Boston’s Patriots Coverage (@NBCSPatriots) January 29, 2020
In 2020, Brady appears finally willing to test the market. According to Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Brady expressed a desire before the 2019 season that he wanted to have the ability to become a free agent.
“Before the season started, it was very important to Tom that he be free to do whatever he wanted at the end of the year,” Kraft said before the Patriots’ playoff loss in January. “You know what I said to myself? That any person who plays 20 years for this team and helps us get to six Super Bowls, and been really selfless, has earned that right.”
Trivia: Three coaches in NFL history have gone 0-4 in Super Bowls during their respective careers. Can you name all three?
(Answer at the bottom).
Hint: One coach lost four in a row, another lost all four with the same team in a single decade, while the third lost three with one team, and a fourth with a second team (losing to his original team).
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Vanessa Bryant made her first public statement since Sunday in an Instagram post
:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B77K8XWDY7O/
Jimmy Garoppolo on watching and learning from Tom Brady: The former Patriots backup has come a long way since he was first drafted in 2014. Garoppolo is now set to lead the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV on Sunday. In a recent interview with NESN’s Doug Kyed, Garoppolo recalled what it was like to learn from Brady through observation.
“Like, it doesn’t get any better than that,” said Garoppolo of watching Brady. “It’s having all of the film right there in front of you but it’s actually, like, live. And you’re actually paying attention or honing in to it. To me, there’s no better teacher than that.”
On this day: In 2017, Isaiah Thomas scored 24 of his 41 points in the fourth quarter of a 113-109 Celtics win over the Pistons.
Daily highlight: Flames goaltender David Rittich jumped out from his net to make a game-winning save against Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl on Wednesday night. Rittich celebrated with a baseball-like flip of his stick.
https://twitter.com/NHLFlames/status/1222767320147193856
Trivia answer: Marv Levy, Bud Grant, and Dan Reeves
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