UFC President Dana White says he helped broker a deal to Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski to join the Las Vegas Raiders during the 2020 free agency period, but then-Raiders head coach Jon Gruden “blew the deal”.
White told the story on the “UFC with the Gronks” show for UFC 278 on Saturday night. He said he never planned to tell the story, until Gronkowski asked him about it on the show.
“I worked to put this deal in place for Brady and Gronk to come to the Raiders,” White said. “And it was almost a done deal. And at the last minute, Gruden blew the deal and said he didn’t want it. And all hell broke loose, man. It was crazy .
“Brady was already looking at houses and it wasn’t yet said that Gronk was coming. So Las Vegas would have had Brady and Gronk the year the [Buccaneers] won the Super Bowl, except Gruden blew the deal. And there are so many stories that go along with that behind the scenes. And I was never going to tell that story until Gronk said it.”
Gronkowski added, “Dana, that’s exactly what happened.”
The deal was in early 2020 when Brady, then a six-time Super Bowl winner with the New England Patriots, entered free agency with the goal of leaving New England. Gronkowski was under contract with the Patriots at the time, even though he had been retired for a year.
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As the story started making the rounds on Saturday night, people started linking it to a quick story Brady told on HBO’s “The Shop” in June.
Brady said he felt like he was being snubbed by a team that was interested “and then all of a sudden they weren’t interested at the very end.” He never mentioned the team by name and questioned his decision to stick with the quarterback they had rather than add Brady to the mix.
“Are you staying with that motherfucker?” Brady said on “The Shop.”
Given White and Gronkowski’s history, the quarterback he was referring to could be Derek Carr. The Raiders quarterback threw for 4,103 yards, 27 touchdowns and nine interceptions that year. His 67.3 percent completion rate and 101.4 quarterback rating weren’t that far off Brady’s in 2020 (65.7 percent, 102.2).
But Las Vegas finished 8-8 and missed the playoffs.
Rob Gronkowski happy he and Tom Brady didn’t join Raiders
Brady eventually signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who worked with the Patriots to bring Gronkowski to town. They won the Super Bowl that first season under head coach Bruce Arians in February 2021.
“I’m glad he didn’t pass,” Gronkowski said. “Everything went well, man. I’m glad we went to Tampa, man. It just worked out. I love this place.”
It ultimately didn’t work out for Gruden, who resigned as head coach of the Raiders in October 2021. It came after reports detailing the use of racist, homophobic and misogynistic terms used by Gruden in emails discovered as part of a cache of 650,000 of them collected during the league’s workplace survey of the Washington franchise. Gruden is suing for damages.
Gronkowski retired again last June. Brady announced his retirement in February. It went on for 40 days before he announced he would return to the Buccaneers. They kick off Week 1 with a trip to the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 11.