Tom Brady and Sean Payton to the Dolphins conspiracy reeks of mutual tampering | You Pod to Win the Game
Yahoo Sports’ Senior NFL Writer Charles Robinson and NFL Media’s Jim Trotter discuss the developing conspiracy theories and stories coming to light on the plan that never came to fruition with Tom Brady and Sean Payton joining the Miami Dolphins. Was there mutual tampering involved? Did the Brian Flores lawsuit end any chance of Brady and Payton ending up in Miami this season? Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
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CHARLES ROBINSON: The Miami, Tom Brady, Sean Payton. Back in then March, I had been hearing a lot of this stuff, right, about Miami and, like, what happened, why. You know, and I kept asking, like, what? Why did Brady un-retire? Like, what changed? Like, what was all this change?
And I had heard that, you know, hey, maybe pay a little closer attention to the Flores lawsuit and the stuff that's come out about, like, maybe Tom was trying to get to Miami, and kind of process that. So, like, March 31, our podcast, I'm like, all right. Eric Edholm's on. I'm like, let me give you the timeline.
So I go through this timeline, and I say, let's just-- I said, I'm not saying anything happened here. But I'm just saying, if you look at the pieces, the big thing that changed that no one really, at this point-- at least then, on March 31-- was pointing at and going, that nuked it, I said, it was the Flores lawsuit happened. And people just didn't connect this idea that that could have turned a Tom Brady pursuit sideways.
What I think is interesting, though, now, is you're hearing-- there's reports all over the place. Obviously, Ben Volin from "The Boston Globe" comes out, and he reports more detail. But now you're starting to see it come out of South Florida that, oh, no, this totally was on the rails.
If there was an idea of backdooring Tom Brady into the franchise-- oh, you're gonna bring him in in an executive position, and then all of a sudden he's gonna want to play quarterback, after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have filled the quarterback slot, so they'll have to trade his rights to us. The whole elaborate nature of the plan, to me-- and I wrote this-- it just reeks of, like, mutual tampering.
You could not have done this. You could not have set this thing up if Stephen Ross wasn't tampering. You could not have set this up if Tom Brady or his proxies weren't doing something on his behalf behind the scenes, you know, engineering this whole thing. Because the first step of this alleged plan was what? Tom had to retire. Which he did, but he didn't even use the word retire.
JIM TROTTER: Charles, I think the point that you made, which is so smart and people need to focus on, is the lawsuit. And what Brian Flores said in that lawsuit, that Stephen Ross wanted him to meet on that yacht with a certain quarterback. Knowing that that quarterback-- let's just say that there were issues with that.
This is what's funny to me. People don't realize-- like, they see Tom Brady in this nice image and this carefully crafted image and all of that, and the nice guy and the smile and this. These players, some of them, behind the scenes, are straight-up dogs.
And I say that respectfully, in terms of their business sense and their sense of worth and what they can do and accomplish. Like, they have a side to them that's like, yeah, let's get down and get dirty, you know?
CHARLES ROBINSON: Mm-hmm.
JIM TROTTER: And I'm not-- and it's not just Tom Brady. There are a number of them who have that public persona, but behind the scenes, man, they are shrewd, they are calculating, and they will cut your heart out in a second. Tom Brady is one of those guys, man.
So when you read all of these things-- I, for one, have no problem envisioning that all of this was taking place or that something was going on. And as you know, tampering is a part of the NFL, man.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah.
JIM TROTTER: And it's just, who does the league office decide it wants to punish--
CHARLES ROBINSON: Right.
JIM TROTTER: --when those situations come up?
