He signed it.
Are you suggesting tom Brady will hold out and demand a trade?
I'm not suggesting anything, just pointed out the situation.
Lot's of players and teams sign 5 year deals. My guess is that most of them have changes in compensation with the time period of the deal. That is why we look at signing bonuses and real money in the short term and the situation after a couple of years. Of course, we usually discuss this in the framework of a team dumping a player (as people seem willing to do for Wilfork and Mayo. One could ask whether the team signed the contracts. I think that they did.
I am not suggesting that Brady would demand a trade. I'm simply suggesting how I might advise if I were the agent of a player who was about to play for $7M when the market was over $20M and my pay was what was being paid to mediocre quarterbacks. Given where Brady is in his career, I would suggest two choices. Either just accept the low wages and hope that the team will use the money wisely.
Or, as a second choice, I would ask to be empowered to go to management and ask for a raise, and suggest that I don't see how Brady can play for $7M when other top quarterbacks are getting $20M. I would suggest that this needs to be worked out and that I wasn't sure that Brady would participate all that much in the voluntary workouts if this situations weren't solved. Brady has no injury risk, so he can show up at mandatory practices. But no, I wouldn't suggest demanding a trade. The team can do as it must. If they choose to be fair, they can do so, or not.
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Look, contracts are negotiated all the time. Brady has produced and is worth much more than this salary. This should be fixed. Mayo is worth less and this should be fixed. Wilfork's salary may or may not be more than he is worth, but the cap hit is too high and the contract will need to be fixed.
So, ALL these contracts were SIGNED. All COULD be torn up. Most posters seem to think that contracts should only be torn up if the player is getting the better deal.