Let's recap. Silver claimed there was a disconnect between the player and team based on information he claimed was from sources close to Brady, who could be anything from frustrated agent speak to a concerned relative to the security guys at UCLA. Since then Brady attended roughly half of the voluntary off season conditioning workouts in Foxboro - beginning in March during the second week of the program, the day after Bob Kraft predicted he would be in attendance as early as the following day - as well as all the voluntary and mandatory OTA's. Bill rode a bike 50 miles with the cougar is tow to support his charity event in June, a period during which he spent three solid weeks here. When he is not here he is working out often with Welker in LA. According to one poster here Brady and Kraft dined out together one evening while he was here. Kraft stated his committment to retaining the player long term while citing the complexity of getting a deal done under an expiring CBA that would satisfy both sides, but reiterated it would get done because both parties wanted it to. Bill Polian echoed basically the same issues were holding up any Manning deal which he said would have to wait at least until there was more clarity on what rules a new CBA might encompass, maybe in October or later in his estimation. We have since learned courtesy of Miguel and some cap specific writers and finally even the local media how the terms of the expiring CBA preclude realistically doing an extension of the magnitude the QB's and a few other elite players entails. Even as some remarkably uninformed mediots persist in opining that they must get a deal done before camp (although even they and Clayton don't think Brady will stage a holdout). These are often also the people who persist in continuing to promote the myth that guaranteed money contract spin by agents representing the top rookies du jour is actually guaranteed, although that too has been repeatedly debunked. Meanwhile there are a handful of elite players publicly contemplating holding out due to lack of extensions, although they all apparently lack the profile to warrant intense interest and therefore commentary outside of their own fanbase. Not to mention of course Brady himself has stated he hasn't really given the lack of contract much thought because there really isn't much that can be done about it beyond the sides continuing to talk privately as they always do here, so he personally is focused on getting ready for the season and back on the field with his teamates.
Classic holdout scenario...not.
BTW Clayton's earlier musings on the subject were also obviously little more than that. He doesn't have to make up the fact that there hasn't been any progress, because there hasn't largely because there can't be at the present time. And he sites no sources on his position that Brady will require a deal at this juncture that closely mirrors whatever Manning gets because that's a pretty commonsensical assumption given they are finally up at the same time and in the same position. Though even he states it will likely still likely come in around a million a year lower and place him among the top two or three at the position. Duh...
Our Tom is a bit of an odd duck celebrity QB. He's never chased the almighty dollar, on or off the field. Early on Don Yee said their strategy was to avoid over exposure and selectively limit the demands on his time so he could maintain his focus on his career and continue to spend quality time that was already limited with those he loved (at that point the list included his parents, sisters, girlfriend and close friends - today it's primarily his wife and sons). He could be selling technology or promoting credit cards or eating cookies with his pal the Donald in every home in America if he was into that. He could be writing tomes about himself or his seasons, but like his HC he tends to resist self promotion. As fate would have it, he ended up married to a woman who an even bigger celebrity icon than Peyton Manning, and that seems to be about as much noteriety and accommodation to celebrity noteriety as he chooses to handle.
The last thing he's going to do at this juncture is become the highest profile holdout in NFL history...while alienating his fanbase, his ownership, his HC, and risking damaging his legacy as the unselfish, driven to win 199th pick in the 2000 draft around whom a dynasty was born.
