Nearly three months ago, when Tom Brady left the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the middle of training camp — to “deal with some personal things,” according to head coach Todd Bowles — a quest to unravel the sudden departure began. Nobody had ever seen an absence like this from a player of Brady’s stature, which was framed in vague terms.
He was taking time off. It was personal. The team was OK with it. End of story.
Of course, it wasn’t the end of the story. There was more to come.
An element of layering that first started with rumors of a brewing divorce from his wife, Gisele Bündchen, accompanied by an onslaught of anonymous details about the struggles the two had been facing in their relationship. Eventually, the coverage of that marital unraveling became the backdrop for Brady’s 11-day training camp absence from the Buccaneers.
While the details were murky at best, a multitude of competing reports claimed to have pinned down one thing: For at least part of Brady’s sudden sabbatical, he allegedly went to the Bahamas to spend time with his kids at an exclusive resort. Finally, there was an alleged silhouette for Brady’s absence in August. It was family time for the quarterback, who was roughly two months from finalizing his divorce from Bündchen.
Brady never confirmed or denied any of these reports. He really never expounded on that period of time at all. That might change in the wake of a class-action lawsuit brought against bankrupt trading platform FTX this…
