Chris Simms doesn’t believe Robert Kraft and Co. are shaking in their boots as NFL free agency nears.
Tom Brady is eligible to hit the open market March 18 when the new league year begins. The Patriots, of course, can sign the six-time Super Bowl champion to a new deal prior to that date, but Brady reportedly is “prepared” to speak with other teams.
And if you ask Chris Simms, the Patriots won’t feel any sense of pressure should Brady go on a free agency tour. The former NFL quarterback seems to believe New England is comfortable with seeing how things shake out with Brady’s other suitors before making its offer to the 42-year-old.
“They’re fine with Brady. Go out there, find some teams, get a market number,” Simms said on NBC Sports. “Let’s see what it is, OK? And then they’re gonna go, ‘OK, do we want to match that market number or how close do we have to get to that market number to make Tom feel happy?’ What is that? Is it five, eight million dollars? I don’t know. To me, for Tom Brady to leave the New England Patriots and go to the Las Vegas Raiders, he better get something substantially more. Is he really going to go there and learn a new offense and learn Jon Gruden’s lingo and do all that and deal with Jon Gruden and all the newness of that situation for what, an extra three or four million dollars a year? I have a hard time believing that.”
It doesn’t feel as though the Brady sweepstakes will be decided by a bidding war, and if his reported top priority truly is a strong supporting cast, the Patriots have much more to figure out than just how much they’d be willing to pay the future Hall of Famer.
