Getty Image / Mike Ehrmann
Tom Brady is the talk of Tampa right now even after the Buccaneers announced this week they’d traded the Patriots for future NFL Hall of Famer Rob Gronkowski. The Bucs are easily the most talked about team in the NFL right now with Tom Brady at the center of that universe.
The city of Tampa has had a stay-at-home order in place since late March, an order imposed by Tampa Mayor Jane Castor. This went into effect almost a full week before Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis issued one statewide.
It’s unclear if Brady thought he was above that stay-at-home order if he was just testing the rules to see if he’d get caught/called out, but he was kicked out of a public park in Tampa while working out. Tampa mayor Jane Castor mentioned this on a video call:
Tom Brady may have won six Super Bowls, but like the rest of us, he’s just trying to find a place to work out. Tampa mayor @JaneCastor said in today’s briefing that a @tampaparksrec employee approached a man working out downtown and told him the park was closed. It was @TomBrady. pic.twitter.com/etrPdrrGsN
— JennaLaineESPN (@JennaLaineESPN) April 20, 2020
I’m 100% certain that wherever Tom Brady is living right now has a fully-functional gym. Pretty much everyone I know who lives in Tampa has a home gym, or the capacity to get in a full workout at home, and not all of them are loaded like Tom Brady. It just comes with the territory of having more living space than other cities and the societal pressure of a ‘beach state’ that keeps people in shape year-round.
On the other hand, Tom might be looking for any reason to get outside right now and expand his lungs with some fresh air and the New York Yankees Single-A affiliate Tampa Bay Tarpons have offered up George Steinbrenner Field as a place for Brady to workout.
Hey @TomBrady……..We know of a #TampaPark you can workout at 😎 pic.twitter.com/N7XC7mImaW
— Tampa Tarpons (@TampaTarpons) April 21, 2020
It also looks like Pat McAfee is thinking about suiting up his boots again:
I have no clue how folks are gonna stop Tampa now.
*Heading to the backyard to see if I can kick a ball still
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) April 21, 2020
Meanwhile, Tampa Bay Buccaneers legend Rodne Barber is HYPED on the arrival of Brady and Gronk:
“You don’t sign Tom Brady to a team that has this much talent … without the expectation that you wanna win a Super Bowl,” Barber says.
“They have talent on this football team. And, an emerging defense. I would say the expectation is to win this year.”
I’m waiting to get hyped because I’m still not convinced we’ll have an NFL season this year.
This is all so weird to me. Almost as weird as Brady leaving the Pats for the Bucs. The YANKEES organization is offering Brady their facilities to work out, the guy who’s been the King of Boston for decades. But he’s being welcomed to Tampa with open arms as the Buccaneers have been a wildly mediocre team for over a decade and the addition of Gronk has bumped Tampa’s odds of making the Super Bowl to 12-to-1.