Tom Brady, Chicago Bear? Apparently it almost happened in 2020, Brady says

Turns out Tom Brady isn’t done breaking teams’ hearts after all.

Chicago Bears fans, take a deep breath. Yes, drafting Mitchell Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes is Da Bears’ most painful what-if of the 21st century. But this one might be a close second.

Think back to 2020. No, don’t remember the pandemic or the election. Remember how Brady and the Patriots split? Remember how Brady hit the free-agent market and immediately electrified the other 31 teams in the NFL? He ended up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, of course, and brought the franchise its second ring. But as he noted on Sunday’s Fox broadcast from Tampa, he very nearly headed north.

“There was a lot of reasons to choose Tampa, and I made about 18 criteria why, and there was things all the way from salary, obviously, to the weather to the facilities to how great the players were,” Brady said. “Ultimately, Chicago was a team, and I’ve never told that story before, they were very stealth in their recruitment. I was seriously considering them.”

Brady held up the actual cards that he used to make his decision, cards that will surely break the hearts of Bears fans. “But in the end, it came down to Tampa,” he continued, citing its proximity to his son and its then-head coach Bruce Arians, along with players like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.

The revelation that he nearly ended up in Chicago was Brady’s second big moment of the Buccaneers-Eagles broadcast, the first being his low-key war of words with Baker Mayfield. After hearing of Mayfield’s comments that the Bucs wanted a less stressful environment after Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl-winning ex-quarterback responded early in the broadcast.

That could’ve been you, Chicago.

All due respect to Brady’s developing game-announcing skills, but this is exactly what NFL fans want out of him — honest perspective and behind-the-scenes tales. However many of these he has left in the tank, bring them out, because that’s a whole lot more interesting than, say, routine analysis of the Eagles’ secondary.

During their three years with Brady under center, the Buccaneers won the NFC South three years in a row and captured a Super Bowl. Over those same three years, the Bears finished second, third and fourth in the NFC North, respectively, and reached the playoffs once, losing in their lone game. Their quarterbacks over that stretch: Trubisky and Justin Fields. There’s no guarantee that Chicago would have been any better with Brady in uniform, but … ah, who are we kidding? Bears fans, you missed out on a three-year run of glory. Sorry about that.