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Bucs coach downplays ‘special treatment’ for Tom Brady after wedding trip
The superstar quarterback was allowed to attend a wedding celebration for Robert Kraft on Friday night in New York, before the Buccaneers played Sunday in Pittsburgh.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Coach Todd Bowles said Monday there was no “worry” about any possible perception that quarterback Tom Brady gets treated differently than other players on the team.
Bowles was asked at a weekly news conference about chatter that Brady was given “special treatment” when the superstar quarterback was allowed to attend a wedding celebration for New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on Friday night in New York.
Brady then reportedly traveled alone to Pittsburgh on Saturday and met his teammates there ahead of Sunday’s game against the host Steelers. Brady’s travel arrangements caused him to miss a walk-through his team held Saturday morning in Tampa before leaving for the road game.
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While Brady submitted a solid, if unspectacular, individual performance in Pittsburgh, the Buccaneers repeatedly bogged down as they neared the end zone and scored just one touchdown in a 20-18 loss to the underdog Steelers. The defeat, which included Brady’s failure to connect on a two-point conversion pass attempt that would have tied the score late in the fourth quarter, dropped Tampa Bay’s record to 3-3.
Immediately after the game, Bowles told reporters that Brady’s trip to New York had “absolutely not” contributed to the team’s struggles in the red zone.
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“He didn’t miss anything,” the coach, in his first year leading the Buccaneers, added at the time. “He had a full week of practice.”
The detour for a wedding celebration while en route to a regular season road game became the latest instance of the Buccaneers allowing Brady to take leave from the team. The 45-year-old had an 11-day excused absence during training camp to “deal with some personal things,” as Bowles put it in August, and Brady is reportedly able to sit out at least some Wednesday practices on an ongoing basis.
On Monday, after being pressed further by reporters about potential discontent among fans or teammates over Brady’s perceived “special treatment,” Bowles replied: “He works as hard as anybody. ‘Special treatment’ — there have been a few guys that have missed meetings and some practices for some special thing that just doesn’t get publicized because they’re not him. It just kind of comes with the territory. You don’t worry about it too much.”
When asked if Brady is as “locked in” as he has been in the past, Bowles said simply, “Yes.”
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During the loss to the previously 1-4 Steelers, who lost starting quarterback Kenny Pickett to the concussion protocols but got a good relief performance from backup Mitchell Trubisky, Brady was shown at one point yelling at members of his offensive line.
“We’re all playing less than what we’re capable of,” Brady told reporters after the defeat at the hands of a Pittsburgh squad missing standout pass-rusher T.J. Watt and several other injured members of its defense. “We’ve all got to look at ourselves in the mirror and figure out why.”
“We didn’t earn the win,” added the seven-time Super Bowl champion, whose squad lost for the third time in four weeks. “It’s a game of earning it, and it’s a game of playing well and performing well, and we’re just not doing a good job of that. I don’t think we’ve done it for six weeks. I think we’re all playing less than what we’re capable of.”
The most recent of Brady’s Super Bowl triumphs came at the end of the 2020 season, his first with the Buccaneers. Before that, he spent 20 years with New England, where he reportedly forged a close friendship with Kraft.
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According to the New York Post, the event Kraft threw Friday was not billed as a wedding celebration but rather a “Kickoff and a Touchdown” party. Most attendees, including a number of former Patriots as well as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, plus several pop stars and other celebrities, were surprised to learn the 81-year-old Kraft had just tied the knot with his fiancee, 47-year-old ophthalmologist Dana Blumberg (via People).
Among those not in attendance was New England Coach Bill Belichick, who said in a radio appearance Monday that he had been invited to the party and planned to go but “in the end, it just was too much at the end of the week.” While Brady and the Buccaneers were struggling in Pittsburgh, Belichick’s Patriots went to Cleveland on Sunday and dominated the Browns, 38-15, despite having to start fourth-round rookie Bailey Zappe in place of injured quarterback Mac Jones.
“Robert and I talked about [attending the party] a couple times … and we both decided the best thing for me to do was to try to get ready to beat Cleveland,” Belichick said on Boston’s WEEI. “We’ll celebrate at another time, but very happy for Robert and Dana. I heard it was a very special night, so, sorry I missed it, but I know it was a great night for him.”
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