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When it came to motivating his teammates, Tom Brady was always one of the best. Apparently his motivation was not limited to fiery speeches. According to former Buccaneers offensive lineman Ali Marpet, Brady essentially bribed his teammates to play better during the quarterback’s time in Tampa Bay.
Marpet revealed this information during an interview on the “Wam Bam” podcast. According to Marpet, the Buccaneers’ ability to run a simple screen had become so “appalling” that Brady felt compelled to intervene, and that’s when he apparently decided to start offering payoffs in cash to motivate everyone to play better.
“[Brady] put our starting offensive line aside and he said, “Hey, if you can get a screen to go more than 15 yards, I’ll give you $1,000 in cash each.” This is for you guys; so whenever we get that, I’ll be happy to make that payment,'” Marpet said via JoeBucsFan.com.
If you do the math, it’s not a cheap deal to make. There are five offensive linemen, meaning Brady would have to pay at least $5,000 every time the Buccaneers run a screen for at least 15 yards.
Not surprisingly, the linemen were delighted with this offer.
“Are you kidding? Like a little extra juice,” Marpet said. “So this kind of thing [Tom did to motivate]”.
According to Marpet, the Buccaneers ran multiple 15-yard screens the rest of the season, meaning Brady paid at least $10,000, if not more.
“There were definitely several 15s,” Marpet said. “So that kind of thing. Again, Tom just knows how guys are wired and what goes a long way, and inspires and gets the best out of his guys.”
It’s unclear when this happened, but Marpet was only teammates with Brady during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, so it was obviously one of those two years (Marpet started 29 games at left guard all playing with Brady and the offensive lineman went Pro Bol in 2021).
The 2020 season would make a lot of sense for several reasons. As Joe Bucs Fan points out, a former Buccaneers player actually called out the team for its “atrocious” screen play in 2020 and if an outsider noticed how bad the screen play was, you can bet that everyone inside the building was aware of its severity. was. Let’s also not forget that the Buccaneers struggled late in the 2020 season. The team was 7-5 before its Week 13 bye, but after that, they managed to reel off eight straight wins in road to a Super Bowl. victory against Kansas City.
If all of that happened in 2020, then the investment definitely paid off for Brady, who walked away with his seventh Lombardi Trophy.
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