Brady Taking Time Off for Family Balance
TAMPA, FL – If there’s one thing that is at the center of every Tampa Bay Buccaneers training camp, it’s Tom Brady. Today, he was not there.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport tweeted that “#Bucs QB Tom Brady is not at practice today for personal, non-football reasons. Coach Todd Bowles will discuss it after practice, but my understanding is he won’t be present for a few days.”
This happened just a few days after had another excused absence for Non-football reasons.
“Tom has been excused today,” said Head Coach Todd Bowles after practice. “He will be taking anywhere…he will be back sometime around after [the] Tennessee [preseason game]. He’s going to deal with some personal things.”
The Bucs are hosting the Miami Dolphins this week for joint practices in preparation for this Saturday’s game at Raymond James Stadium. Brady was present for Wednesday’s practice against the Dolphins.
According to Bowles, this plan has been in place for sometime. Instead of missing the first couple of weeks of training camp, Brady is stepping away while the team prepares for two preseason games in which he wasn’t going to play.
Brady’s absence leaves more time for reps Blaine Gabbert, Kyle Trask and Ryan Griffin who will be playing the preseason, giving Bowles a good look at his backup quarterbacks.
“This is something we talked about before training camp started,” Bowles explained. “We allotted this time because he wanted to get in and chemistry with the guys and go through two weeks of training camp. Knowing he wasn’t going to play the first two games he didn’t want to take away reps from Blaine and Kyle, as well as Griff, as far as going into these next two games. It’s something that he needs to handle. We trust him. We talked about it – it was scheduled way before training camp and he will not be here until after Tennessee.”
With Brady’ experience, and the system installed, Bowels had very little worries about thee offense.
“I don’t think it stops us at all,” said the coach. “We have a system in place, we have guys we want to see. Like I said, it gives us a chance to see the backup quarterbacks, it gives us a chance to see the receivers trying to make the team. It kind of helps us that way, seeing him under the lights and in practice. So I don’t think it hurts us all.”