When Tom Brady elected to come back from his short retirement, it was welcome news for the Buccaneers.
Apparently, that goes especially for edge rusher Shaq Barrett, who said he wasn’t quite surprised when he learned Brady was coming back.
“I knew it was a possibility — or I thought it was a possibility, I didn’t know,” Barrett said in a Wednesday press conference. “So when I got [the news] I was just excited. I know we’ve got good quarterbacks on the team. But I’ve been in situations [with the Broncos] where we had a main guy and then when he’s gone, we’re trying to fill the void. And we still had a winning season, a 9-7 season. But I feel like, I just wasn’t ready for life without Tom yet.”
With Brady turning 45 in August, there’s a decent chance that 2022 will be the quarterback’s last season. So Barrett is as motivated as ever to help get the Buccaneers back to the Super Bowl.
“Hopefully we can send him out on the highest note possible,” Barrett said. “We’ve just got to start now, put the work in now. But if it is his last ride, I’m going to make sure I do everything I can to send him out on top of the mountain.”
Barrett won Super Bowl 50 with the Broncos before signing with the Buccaneers as a free agent in 2019 and developing into one of the league’s top edge rushers.
