Throughout February and March, the Bucs had been in the conversation but were never considered the favorite to land Brady, until they stole a march on their rivals on March 17.
The role of favorite was reserved for the Tennessee Titans, the Las Vegas Raiders and the Los Angeles Chargers. In some quarters, even the San Francisco 49ers were expected to have a better shot at signing the veteran quarterback than Tampa Bay, despite the fact that the Super Bowl LIV runners-up remained committed to Jimmy Garoppolo.
However, it has since emerged that the Bucs had long cast their eyes on Brady and were prepared to pull out all the stops to convince the former Michigan alumni to swap New England’s rigid winters for Florida’s sunshine.
While better weather and an improved paycheque—Brady has signed a two-year deal worth $50 million fully guaranteed—may have caught Brady’s attention, convincing arguably the greatest quarterback that’s ever played the game to swap the franchise with whom he’s won six Super Bowls for a team whose winning percentage since its inception stands below 40 percent was not easy feat. However, so committed were the Bucs to secure their man that their extensive plans stretched as far as having a secret coded operation, which included every facets of their pursuit of the Patriots start.
According to both ESPN and the Tampa Bay Times, the Bucs quest to secure Brady was nicknamed “Operation: Shoeless Joe Jackson”.
The name, of course, is brilliantly incongruous for a NFL franchise as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was a member of the Chicago White Sox team who were involved in one of the MLB’s first major scandal, when they were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series, which they lost to the Cincinnati Reds. One of the stars of the team—which earned the Black Sox monicker following the scandal—Jackson was one of the focal points of the 1989 classic Field of Dreams, featuring Kevin Costner and Ray Liotta.
John Spytek, the Bucs’ director of player personnel and a former teammate of Brady at Michigan, reportedly came up with the monicker because convincing Brady to sign for the Bucs was as unlikely as a legendary MLB slugger like Jackson “walking out of a cornfield in Iowa”—in 1949 Jackson explained he had got his nickname after running to third base in just his socks during a game in Greenville, South Carolina, as the new pair of cleats he was wearing had caused painful blisters on his feet.
Spytek is apparently so much of a fan of the movie that he suggested the nickname to fellow Bucs executives, quoting a famous line from the film to general manager Jason Licht
“If we build it, he will come,’’ Spytek reportedly said. “Go the distance.''
Lich and the Bucs did and Brady will play in Tampa Bay next season. Whether he can take the Bucs the distance, remains to be seen.
