Tom Brady's Bucs Contract Details Revealed; Includes No Franchise, Transition Clause

An exit route lies in front of Tom Brady if he wants to leave the Tampa Bay Buccaneers following the 2022 NFL season.

According to the Boston Globe's Ben Volin, the legendary quarterback can earn as much as $19.5 million next year, and Tampa Bay will be prohibited from using the franchise or transition tag:

This was the same general structure for Brady's last contract with the New England Patriots ahead of the 2019 season. He re-signed with New England and made sure the Patriots couldn't tag him in 2020.

As a result, the 15-time Pro Bowler could explore his market during the 2020 offseason and landed with the Bucs.

While this doesn't guarantee Brady will do the same thing in Tampa Bay, Volin and ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio detailed earlier this month how he orchestrated a plan to join the Miami Dolphins. 

The 44-year-old first would've become a minority owner of the Dolphins before arranging a trade with the Bucs that would've allowed him to play for Miami.

That got scuttled in the wake of Brian Flores' lawsuit laying out allegations of discrimination by the Dolphins and other teams during the hiring process. 

Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht downplayed the rumors that linked Brady with the Dolphins.

"I make of it—chatter, just like you said," he told reporters last week. "We're focused on putting our team together here with the draft, and we're all excited, we're all in lockstep here—Tom, Todd [Bowles], myself, Byron [Leftwich], the entire coaching staff—on this season."

Whether implicitly or explicitly, the nature of Brady's contract puts pressure on the Buccaneers to keep their starting quarterback happy if they want to keep him around.

Bruce Arians already stepped down as head coach. As much as Arians wants to speak positively about his relationship with Brady, that's unlikely to quell the perception his departure was done in part to keep the future Hall of Famer at ease.