NFL insider suggests Buccaneers tampered with Tom Brady back in 2020

Tom Brady was in the news a lot this past week, thanks in large part to his Netflix roast that took place on Sunday night.

It was an absolutely brutal event that at times seemed to be more than what Brady signed up for.

Endless jokes about Giselle and Aaron Hernandez dominated the night and the camera cut to a visibly uncomfortable Brady more than a few times. At one point he confronted Jeff Ross about a Robert Kraft joke he told, but in the end Brady took the mic and fired off some savage burns of his own.

The lead up to the event saw his former teammates hit the interview circuit to hype the roast, something Lavonte David foud himself doing on Friday. While he seemingly told some innocent stories about Brady, ProFootballTalk has taken one specific thing David said and stretched it into another potential accusation against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Did the Buccaneers tamper with Tom Brady during 2020 offseason?

Mike Florio churned out some word salad that seemed to suggest that the Buccaneers tampered with Brady during the 2020 offseason. He bases his claim not on any concrete evidence but on Lavonte David's story he told Rich Eisen last week about how Bruce Arians told him that Brady was on the team's radar.

“I just remember in the exit meeting, talking to Coach BA,” David said. “You know, you have a one-on-one with the head coach. I just remember him saying, ‘If we don’t get Jameis [Winston] back, we are going to get someone in here for you to get us over the hump . . . get us to the Super Bowl.“And he literally said this, ‘.’”

For some that was simply a cool story, but to Florio it was a five alarm fire that everyone apparently overlooked until now.

Based on that story from David, Florio deduces that the sheer amount of tampering that went on with Brady in other years likely means the Bucs did it too.

That’s not necessarily evidence of tampering, but it shows that Brady was on their radar screen. Did they contact Brady prematurely," Florio asked, seemingly trying to toss the hot potato he baked before grabbing hold again. "It was clear in 2020 that they had, frankly. Arians openly spoke about pursuing Brady at the Scouting Combine that year. Then, after they signed him, they mobilized to sell the narrative that they didn’t talk to him at all before the official start of the league year."

We've seen the Bucs clumsily reveal their missteps before, like Todd Bowles' over-explaining why Devin White was deactivated in Week 15 to the point where a league investigation was launched.

It's unclear what the angle is here in trying to suggest the Buccaneers tampered with Brady. While there's no doubt that Tampa Bay had him on their radar -- as did a handful of other teams that offseason -- there's nothing to suggest the team broke any rules. There was never an investigation, despite Arians' comments at the combine, and the rest was history.

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