If Brady Leaves, Cleveland Browns Favored To Be His Next Team

The uncertainty surrounding Tom Brady is more pervasive now than at any point over the previous 15 years. If you’re wondering why it’s because for the first time in his career, he’s an unrestricted free agent.

There’s a lot of chatter about him leaving the Patriots but it’s unclear whether he actually will or not. The oddsmakers have posted the lines and if Brady does in fact leave, the Browns are the team that’s favored to land him.

IS TOM BRADY LEAVING THE PATRIOTS?

First thing is first: is Brady leaving the Patriots? He can’t go to the Cleveland Browns or any other team unless he first chooses to leave the New England Patriots, an organization where he has won six Super Bowls and played in nine. Brady has completely rewritten the NFL record books, and he has defined the flow of professional football in the 21st century, even more than Peyton Manning. Brady played in eight of the past nine AFC Championship Games. The story of the contemporary NFL puts him at the center of the action. No other player is as central to the league.

Does Brady want to leave this identity behind? Does he really want to play for another team and another coach after playing nearly 20 years in one place? It’s unclear what’s happening as both he and the franchise are clandestine about it. Why wouldn’t he already have a deal in place? Why did he and his trainer Alex Guerrero sell those homes in the Boston area? Where there is smoke, there is some fire, so maybe Brady is planning to leave.

TEAM ODDS FOR TOM BRADY IN WEEK 1 OF 2020

BROWNS: +550
PANTHERS: +600
RAIDERS: +600
CHARGERS: +600
COWBOYS: +700

The Browns are favored in this sweepstakes, but should they be? They haven’t decided on their new coach yet but current Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is the favorite to land that job. The relationship between Brady and McDaniels is very close, so there is a school of thought which says that the team which hires McDaniels as its next head coach is where Brady will play quarterback. That is one of many possibilities, but it might be a stretch to think Brady will chase McDaniels. And even if he does, what happens to Baker Mayfield? The Browns spent the first overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft on Mayfield, so would they really bench him or move on from him this soon? It seems unlikely but they’ve been losing for so long that bringing the GOAT might actually be the right thing for them to do.

WHERE ELSE MIGHT BRADY GO?

Where might Brady go in the end? The McDaniels angle matters, but one also has to consider the other quarterback situations around the NFL. Philip Rivers is probably done with the Chargers, which is why that team makes the most sense of any of the non-New England possibilities on the board. The Browns don’t make as much sense because the ownership group, the Haslam family, is unreliable and doesn’t have a good reputation in NFL circles. The Raiders have the appeal of playing their first season in a new city, Las Vegas. Derek Carr could leave the Raiders, which gives Brady a possible angle to go there.

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