getty Kyle Van Noy says he saw the writing on the wall for Tom Bradys exit in 2019.
Many who follow the New England Patriots and the NFL were shocked to see Tom Brady leave the team after spending 20 seasons with the organization and winning six Super Bowl rings. However, some who shared the locker room with the future Hall of Famer weren’t quite as shocked. Former Patriots defensive back, Aqib Talib said Brady was going to leave weeks before the decision was officially made–or at least made public.
Talib was dead on with his prediction, and another of Brady’s former teammates and fellow departed Patriot, Kyle Van Noy said he was a little surprised, but he could see the divorce coming. During an interview on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Zolak and Bertrand,” Van Noy said this in regards to his experience, observations and reaction to Brady leaving the Patriots:
I was just like everybody else: I was shocked a little bit, but I felt like I could see the writing on the wall with just how things went and just how things played out. I wish he was a lifer in New England because I think that would have been a really cool story. But I’m happy for him. He got what he wanted, a $50 million contract guaranteed. That is amazing. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve earned, that’s still a bunch of money.
During the season when Brady and the team he’d spent his entire career with couldn’t come to an agreement on an extension, Van Noy says he really took notice. He continued:
I would say the writing on the wall was on getting a deal before free agency. That to me was ‘OK, it doesn’t look like he’s going to stay.’ You would think with him being there that long, it would have got done. But who knows? I don’t know how he’s done stuff in the past, but for me, that was ‘Oh, man. This is gonna get real.
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Brady signed a two-year, $59 million deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He will be 43 when the 2020 season begins, and $50 million of his contract is fully guaranteed. For a future Hall-of-Famer headed to the end of his career, Brady couldn’t be in a more comfortable position–at least on paper.
Van Noy spent 3.5 years with the Patriots and won two Super Bowls with the team, but he too was a part of a mass retooling of the organization. Along with center Ted Karras and fellow linebacker Elandon Roberts, Van Noy reunited with former Patriots assistant and now Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores.
His with the Fins is for four years, and it’s worth $51 million. At the beginning of the 2019 season, if you told Patriots fans both Van Noy and Brady would leave the team, play the 2020 in the state of Florida, but for different teams, none of them would have believed you. Then again, if you were told a virus would sweep the world, shutting down almost all sports and other industries, you probably would have received strange looks as well.
Things change.
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