Dolphins
The Dolphins signed QB Zach Wilson as their backup to Tua Tagovailoa in free agency this offseason. Miami HC Mike McDaniel explained why Wilson was their choice and cited his toughness from being drafted in a market like New York.
“It’s an inexact science, but we felt he was the best option for us,” McDaniel said, via Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. “He was a direct, calculated target. We thought that was a way the Miami Dolphins could get better and are excited to see how he seizes that opportunity. What I see in Zach is the experience of being the second pick in the draft, being the starter Week 1 and then not fulfilling the rookie contract, that is behind him. To me, that’s an exciting prospect because you can’t put a measurement on that human ability that is huge at the quarterback position.”
“That’s powerful to me in that there’s very few people who know what it’s like to be drafted high in New York City, and so then to see his resolve, to see where he’s digested the whole situation — it’s like anything for all of us. If you have adversity in your life, that can be a source of strength and growth or it can be a source of that’s what defines you and you can’t get over that.”
Jets
Jets WR Josh Reynolds said he chose to sign with New York due to the presence of HC Aaron Glenn.
“I think the biggest reason was coach Glenn,” he said, via the team’s website. “I’ve always been a fan of that dude being with him in Detroit, seeing how he operated, how he carried himself and how he carried the defense. And I just knew he brings something special. He brings the right guys around, brings the right culture around. And I just wanted to be a part of it. I think just being in Detroit, and him being a DB coach and me being a receiver, we kind of got to see each other a lot. And just kind of talk to each other about things, how he sees this, how you see that.”
Reynolds added that he’s excited to work with OC Tanner Engstrand, who was the passing game coordinator for Detroit.
“Man, Tanner, you can tell he has got a mind for that offense,” Reynolds said. “And for him to bring that here is going to be a game changer, for sure. And I’m excited how he’s going to do his little twists on being an OC and [I’m] excited to see how he goes.”
Patriots
Tom Brady discussed becoming a free agent and opting to leave for Tampa Bay once he and former HC Bill Belichick‘s goals began to differ from each other.
“I was only involved in free agency once, at the tail-end of my career, when free agency means something very different than it does for a backup coming off a disappointing season or a young guy coming off the last year of his rookie deal,” Brady wrote in his weekly newsletter. “For me, it was a creeping decision that lived passively in the back of my mind for 2-3 years until March of 2020, when a whirlwind of a few days made me realize that a decision was coming sooner rather than later. The reality was that, after twenty years together, a natural tension had developed between where Coach Belichick and I were headed in our careers, and where the Patriots were moving as a franchise. It was the kind of tension that could only be resolved by some kind of split or one of us reassessing our priorities.”
Brady said he categorized what was important to him when choosing what team to join and ultimately settled on the Buccaneers.
“I asked myself, as someone headed into their forties with school-age kids and twenty years worth of battle scars, what truly mattered to me now?” Brady wrote. “What I ended up with was a list of about twenty things that I then ranked and graded on a weighted scale from 1 to 3. The presence of skill players was a 3 in terms of importance, for example, and the Bucs graded out as a 3 because of guys like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. The same was true for the head coach. That was a 3 in importance, and Tampa scored a 3 with Bruce Arians. Game day weather was a 2, practice weather was a 3. Financial compensation was on the list, obviously, but it wasn’t first, it probably wasn’t even top 10, and it definitely didn’t rank as a 3 in importance. In the end, I chose Tampa, almost exactly five years ago now, because, in the aggregate, it graded out higher than New England along those twenty or so dimensions. It’s not much more complicated than that.”
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