John Romano: How not chasing the money has made Tom Brady a very wealthy man

TAMPA, Fla. — For the most part, we are accustomed to, and accepting of, outlandish contracts in sports. A hundred million over here, a quarter-billion over there? Been there, marveled at that.

Yet there have been some recent headlines in the NFL that, when put in the proper context, are actually quite stunning.

For instance, Aaron Rodgers signed a three-year, $150 million deal with the Packers in early March. That’s not the stunning part. Deshaun Watson got a fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million deal from the Browns. Groundbreaking, but not stunning. Derek Carr just signed a three-year deal with the Raiders that will pay him more than $40 million a year. Foolhardy perhaps, but also not stunning.

No, if you want the truly amazing number, consider this:

With previous bonuses and incentives, Tom Brady will make somewhere around $25 million for the 2022 season. Or, if you need help with the math, about 37.5 percent less money than Carr.

Think about how absurd that sounds. And it’s not a fluke.

According to Spotrac.com, there are 14 quarterbacks in the NFL who will have a higher average salary than Brady. That would include Carson Wentz, Kirk Cousins, Ryan Tannehill, Jared Goff, Matt Ryan, Dak Prescott, Watson and Carr.

Those eight quarterbacks have combined for zero Super Bowl victories as starters. Brady, by himself, has seven.

Yet the most accomplished quarterback of all time is making Jimmy Garoppolo money.

It is, simultaneously, both remarkable and predictable. While Brady has made more money than any player in NFL history (somewhere north of $310 million), that is due mostly to his longevity.

You see, Brady has never chased record-breaking deals, instead opting for better circumstances rather than more dollars. A Business Insider breakdown from a couple of years ago estimated that he left at least $60 million on the table, and probably more than $100 million, during his New England years.

He’s done it here in Tampa Bay, too. While originally signing a two-year, $50 million deal with the Bucs in 2020, he could have leveraged the Super Bowl 55 title into a much more lucrative extension. Instead, last spring, he agreed to another $25 million in 2022, while converting part of his salary to guaranteed bonuses that helped the Bucs lower their salary cap number and re-sign all of their starters.

So maybe, at age 44, Brady does not deserve to be the highest-paid QB in the game. What about three years ago? He was 13th. Five years ago? Brady was 15th. Eight years ago? He was 16th. And early in his career, he was far behind the Peyton Mannings and Michael Vicks of the world because he was a sixth-round draft pick making the NFL’s equivalent of chump change.

Other than a handful of minutes in 2011 when he signed his fourth deal with the Patriots, Brady has never been near the top of the NFL’s quarterback pay scale.

And for years in New England, the narrative was that Brady accepted less money to help the Patriots keep the team intact while staying under the salary cap.

“If we were going to have to pay him elite-quarterback money and have elite-quarterback cap numbers, I just didn’t think we would be able to build a team,” Patriots owner Robert Kraft told Peter King in 2013. “I credit Tom for doing the right thing and thinking outside the box.”

Does that make Brady the greatest teammate ever? Does it make him a lousy businessman? Does it make him more altruistic than others? Or does it make him shrewder than the rest?

Like all things involving Brady, the answers are more complicated than they appear. For, while he has been a marvel on the field, Brady has also been opportunistic off it. Forbes estimated Brady made more than $30 million in endorsements in 2021. His TB12 wellness company continues to expand.

His brand is gold, and it’s built on the idea that Tom Brady never loses. So did he sell himself short with his NFL contracts, or did he make his off-the-field opportunities more valuable by making sure he was in Super Bowl headlines year after year?

Maybe that’s a cynical reading of Brady’s loyalty and desire to win. Maybe it is only about the Ws and never about the $s. But if you think Brady has blindly accepted the NFL contracts he has been offered, then you are underestimating him.

When it was clear the talent level around him had dwindled and the Patriots were not going to commit to him long term in his 40s, Brady deftly orchestrated his departure. His final contract was a one-year, $23 million extension, and it was widely assumed a new deal would follow if the 2019 season went well.

Instead, Brady insisted his final contract include a stipulation that the Patriots could not keep him in 2020 via a franchise tag. A year later, he was in Tampa Bay.

And now? History may be repeating itself at One Buc Place.

Brady has returned from a brief retirement to play under a contract that criminally undervalues his true worth in today’s NFL. A new deal is clearly deserved, but the Bucs would probably insist on tying Brady up for 2023.

If that’s a deal breaker for him, you can probably assume that the Brady-to-Miami gossip was not just gossip. And you should prepare yourself for his eventual exit next spring.

That would stink, but as a consigliere once said, this is business not personal. And nobody has ever been better at the business of the NFL than Tom Brady.