National Football League

Tom Brady on the Bears?! Would it have resulted in a Super Bowl for Chicago?

Updated Oct. 1, 2024 2:14 p.m. ET

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Carmen Vitali

NFL Reporter

As Tom Brady has gotten more comfortable in the broadcast booth, he's started peeling back the curtain on his illustrious playing career in the process.

Brady was on the call for Sunday's Philadelphia Eagles-Tampa Bay Buccaneers tilt in Tampa, the latter a franchise that accounts for one of those seven Super Bowl rings Brady flashes on his fingers. 

Hindsight reads like a fairy tale, though people will forget that 2020 Bucs team started 7-5 before running the table following their Week 13 bye. It came during the tumultuousness of COVID, filled with tented outdoor meeting rooms, tracking devices, nasal swabs and myriad anxieties. The only constant was football, which Brady used as his guide, while the rest of the team used him as theirs. 

The team entered the 2020 playoffs as a wildcard, a first for Brady. They played on the road week after week, before ultimately coming home to be the first team to win a Super Bowl in their own stadium — even if half the stadium was made up of cardboard cutouts of fans.

As someone who worked for that team, at that time, I can tell you that 2020 season amid all its challenges and deviations felt like a fever dream. The only proof that it wasn't, spins in a slow circle inside a black and red Jason of Beverly Hills box: a diamond-encrusted gold Super Bowl ring, emblazoned with my last name. It's the most ostentatious thing I own.

Thank you, Tom.

Yet on Sunday's FOX broadcast at Raymond James Stadium, Brady actually revealed that his championship with Tampa was closer than we all thought to actually being a fever dream. He almost went somewhere else upon leaving New England. 

Brady almost became a Chicago Bear.

"Ultimately, Chicago was a team — and I never told that story before — they were very stealth in their recruitment," Brady revealed in the booth alongside Kevin Burkhardt. "I was seriously considering them."

Tom Brady shares notecards he used when choosing Bucs in free agency, reveals Bears were close

*insert record scratch*

What would that have meant for Chicago?

Is it as simple as Tom Brady leading the Bears to victory in Super Bowl LV? Can we realistically swap out one for the other?

The Bucs had a 7-9 record in the season prior to Brady's arrival. The Bears went 8-8 in that same 2019 campaign. 

Matt Nagy was the head coach and play-caller in Chicago to start the 2020 season. Bill Lazor had been hired in the offseason to become the Bears' new offensive coordinator (and would take over play-calling duties in November that year). Chuck Pagano was in charge of the defense.

The offensive corps in Chicago at that time consisted of wide receivers Allen Robinson and Darnell Mooney; running backs David Montgomery, Tarik Cohen and Cordarrelle Patterson (who was an All-Pro that season) and tight ends Jimmy Graham and rookie Cole Kmet. Defensively, the team was led by Khalil Mack, Roquan Smith and Akiem Hicks. The Bears defense finished that season ranked 11th in the NFL. They let up just 23.1 points per game. 

For reference, the Bucs had the league's sixth-ranked defense and let up just 22.2 points per game that year. They also didn't give up a touchdown against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in their Super Bowl win.

Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady holds the Lombardi Trophy after leading the Bucs to victory in Super Bowl LV. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

So, were the Bears capable of all of that, too?

Come with us as we revise NFL history in a world where Brady signs with the Bears instead of joining the Bucs in 2020. 

Chicago got off to a hot start in 2020, sitting at 5-1 in Week 6. But they proceeded to go on an ensuing six-game losing streak. That skid would have conceivably been prevented by Brady. The Bears offense ranked 26th to finish out that season. They scored an average of just 23.3 points per game. That's only .2 points more than the defense was letting up. If they had a more experienced quarterback, one proven to come in clutch and lead game-winning drives, that differential would have been much better (more on this in a second).

There's also another Brady effect to consider. How much better would the Bears' personnel have gotten? Brady infamously recruited other free agents to join him in Tampa. He would have done the same in Chicago, despite the lack of sun and a state income tax.

For instance, Rob Gronkowski would be in the tight end room, either in addition to Graham and Kmet or instead of the aging Graham. Gronkowski infamously joked early in the 2020 season after coming out of retirement that he was primarily a blocking tight end. He went on to play in 16 games. He had seven touchdowns. But the postseason is where Brady went back to his faithful friend, more specifically, in Super Bowl LV itself. Gronk caught six of seven targets in the game. He scored two touchdowns.

That would have been in the navy and orange instead of the pewter and red.

Brady also wooed players like Leonard Fournette, LeSean McCoy and Antonio Brown to Tampa. Would they have all come to Chicago? Would they have even needed to with the likes of Montgomery and Cohen and Patterson? And Chicago, with its offensive scheme, wouldn't have seen Brady throw for 5,000 yards in a season, taking some pressure off the 43-year-old vet. Maybe instead of another running back, the Bears and Brady would combine to bring in a wide receiver that would have gotten Chicago closer to the arsenal Tampa had at its disposal (see: Mike Evans, Chris Godwin). Someone like, say, Amari Cooper, who was a free agent that year. Let's put him with the Bears with Allen Robinson and give Brady a decent tandem to work with.

It would have been the Bears — not the Bucs — averaging over 30 points per game. It would have been Chicago with a high-flying top-10 offense, with Brady having to do less himself. The Bucs had the 28th-ranked rushing offense under Bruce Arians. Nagy would have undoubtedly used the stable he had and gotten more out of Montgomery, like we're now seeing with him in Detroit four years later.

Look no further than PFF's WAR stat (wins above replacement) and the fact that Brady ranked second among quarterbacks in 2020 to know that the impact of his presence on the Bears can't be overstated.

What's more, Brady has led NFL QBs in WAR twice. Once in 2015 and again in 2017. The New England Patriots went to the AFC Championship Game in 2015 and to the Super Bowl in 2017. It's a safe bet to assume Chicago's record goes up with Brady at quarterback. That six-game losing streak the Bears had in 2020? In those six games, Chicago would have won at least four of them if they scored 30 points each game. That means the Bears add four victories to their real-world win total and finish the season 12-4 with Brady.

A team led by Brady averaging 30 points per game and letting up just over 20, or maybe even less given that the offense could sustain drives and not tire the defense out, would have challenged for the NFC North crown, even with Aaron Rodgers playing for Green Bay at an MVP level.

Those two Brady-Rodgers duels would have been something, wouldn't they?

The Matt Nagy-led Bears went 8-8 in 2020. Would that record have improved with Tom Brady at quarterback? (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

And while Chicago ultimately finishes second in the division to the 13-3 Packers, it would have earned the Bears a wild-card berth, and with Brady, it wouldn't have ended in the first round. They could have conceivably followed the Buccaneers' path to Super Bowl LV.

Imagine it's Chicago beating Green Bay in the NFC Championship Game.

And, if indeed the Bears saw all that success in 2020, what would that mean for their current team? Do they still draft Justin Fields in 2021 with Brady likely still on the roster like he was in Tampa? The answer is probably not. Instead, they wait for 2023, the season after Brady's departure. There's Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson, except the Bears no longer own the first overall pick to bargain with or use themselves. Will Levis was the fourth quarterback off the board.

Most likely they turn to another veteran as a result, though free agency pickings were slim that offseason as well. They could have ended up with a bridge like Baker Mayfield (though he likely would have been a Buccaneer already — he was Tampa's backup plan to Brady). Perhaps Lamar Jackson doesn't sign back with the Ravens if the post-Brady Bears are a viable option?

Would the Bears have cleaned house in 2022, anyway? And perhaps be right where they are currently — save for having their own shiny gold rings with a matching silver trophy from 2020?

Brady would have been a hero in Boston and Chicago, two of the best sports towns this country has to offer. Would that have meant more patience from Bears fans still riding that high and not a 40-year championship lull, instead?

That, we'll never know.

Carmen Vitali is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV. 

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