National Football League

Tom Brady almost joined Bears in 2020 free agency after 'stealth' recruitment

Updated Sep. 29, 2024 6:47 p.m. ET

Tom Brady turned the Tampa Bay Buccaneers into an instant Super Bowl champion after he signed with them in 2020.

Could he have done the same for the Chicago Bears?

Apparently, he almost had an opportunity to do so. During his broadcast of the Bucs' game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday afternoon, the FOX Sports lead NFL analyst revealed that the Bears were a "stealth" contender for his services when he left the New England Patriots as a free agent. Brady went as far to say that he "seriously" thought of playing the remainder of his career in Chicago.

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"Ultimately, Chicago was a team — and I never told that story before — they were very stealth in their recruitment," Brady said. "I was seriously considering them.

"But in the end, it came down to Tampa. It was close to my son Jack. I love [then-Bucs coach] Bruce Arians and the role he played in the offense. And ultimately, the great players like [star wide receivers] Mike Evans and Chris Godwin that I'm still out there watching today."

It was pretty well known at the time that the Buccaneers and the Los Angeles Chargers were two of the teams that were pursuing Brady when he departed from New England after 20 years and six Super Bowl titles. But there was only speculation about other teams in the bidding, most of which centered around the Miami Dolphins.

But nobody had much of an inkling that the Chicago Bears — who were quarterbacked by Mitchell Trubisky at the time — were involved.

During the broadcast, though, Brady was showing off several pieces of paper where he wrote down his thoughts during his free-agent process. He said he wrote down "18 criteria" for why he chose the Bucs. "And there was things all the way from the salary, obviously, to the weather to the facilities to how great the players were," he said.

But the Bears were right there too — which was a secret that even his FOX Sports broadcast partner, Kevin Burkhardt, seemed shocked that everyone managed to keep for more than four years.

"You know what? They were really under the radar," Brady said. "And nobody would've realized that. Free agency is a tricky thing and once you make your decision there was no looking back, so there's no reason to ever tell anybody that."

Brady did not go into why he didn't choose to sign with the Bears, though he clearly doesn't regret his final choice. The Bucs won the Super Bowl in his first season in Tampa and they made the playoffs in each of his three seasons there.

The Bears, meanwhile, actually went 8-8 and made the playoffs with Trubisky in 2020. They lost in the wild-card round to the New Orleans Saints, who then lost to Brady's eventual Super Bowl champion Bucs in the divisional round.

The next spring, the Bears replaced Trubisky by drafting quarterback Justin Fields with the 11th overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Fields is now having a mini-resurgence of his own as quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Bears — now quarterbacked by Caleb Williams, the No.1 overall pick of the 2024 draft — haven't been back to the playoffs since that 2020 season with Trubisky.

"I just felt like ultimately I made a great decision coming to Tampa," Brady said. "And what we accomplished as a team, and relationships with [general manager] Jason Licht and his whole staff and all the players … it meant so much to me. Three years later, [after] I left, I realize how important this place has been in my football journey."

Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.

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