The Chicago Bears have been on a decline since 2018 and haven’t had a winning season since. But in the free agency of 2020, they tried making a “stealthy” move that would have changed the face of the franchise forever. They tried to sign Tom Brady! Well, it’s no surprise that the team has been on a lookout for QBs actively, but Tom Brady?

For a moment, Brady wanted to be a Bear, but a lot of things stopped him. Mainly the financial aspect of the trade. The trade didn’t materialize, they had to settle with Mitch Trubisky and Nick Foles. They eventually moved on to Justin Fields and we know how that went. Bears fans might be angrier after hearing what MLFootball has to say about Brady’s recruitment.

MLFootball recently took to X and posted a picture with captions, “BREAKING: It appears the #Bears only offered Tom Brady 10 million dollars to sign with them and free agency of 2020,” further pointing out that lowballing Brady put a full stop to their Super Bowl dreams. It was Tampa who capitalized on the opportunity and didn’t hesitate to pay $27.5 million to Brady.

The last time the Chicago won a Super Bowl in 1985 and people still can’t help but think about the 85 Bears to this day. That glory would have been repeated with Tom Brady at quarterback. But let’s talk about the picture in MLFootball’s post. It’s blurry, bad quality, but not pixelated enough to understand Brady’s child-like handwriting.

The picture shows Tom Brady holding a couple of pieces of paper with one of them saying “CHICAGO” with “10mn” written at the top. The next piece of paper says “TAMPA” with the amount, “27.5mn” written at the top. The rest of the digits and details are blurry. It’s hard to image that a team worth $3.5 billion in 2020 ($6.3 Billion now) would lowball the 7x Super Bowl winner so bad.

Restoring the Chicago Bears Super Bowl glory after 3 and a half decades sounds dreamy, and that’s exactly what it was, a dream. But to everyone’s surprise, Tom Brady was “seriously considering” joining the Chicago Bears. So, what stopped him? Well, the pay, the facility, the QBs family priorities and of course, the weather at Tampa was enough for Brady to decline Chicago’s offer.

“There was a lot of reasons to choose Tampa, and I made about 18 criteria why, and there was things all the way from salary, obviously, to the weather to the facilities to how great the players were,” Brady said during the Eagles–Buccaneers broadcast. “Ultimately, Chicago was a team, and I’ve never told that story before, they were very stealth in their recruitment. I was seriously considering them.”

People had some interesting insights and takes on Brady joining the Bears, but check out what he had to say about not signing with the Chicago football team.

Fans are flaming the Chicago Bears for their failed pursuit

Brady went to play for Tampa for 3 more seasons and brought along Rob Gronkowski with him. Imagine the damage the Chicago Bears could have done with Brady and his tight end, who held a record for most post season touchdowns at one point. But Brady winning a Lombardi is still arguable in many fans’ eyes. Of course, they are flaming the Bears over this ill-advised decision with one pointing out, “He wasn’t winning a Super Bowl with Chicago lol.”

Another bystander took logical route and pointed out that the Bears roster wasn’t competitive enough to land them to a Super Bowl, saying, “Chicago did not have the players we had in Tampa we were only missing QB Chicago was missing several pieces.” One user was fuming on X sidelines as they pointed out, “Stupid Franchise be a Stupid Franchise over and over again.”

A user hilariously iterated that Brady should have sneaked in some fugazi numbers just to mess with the fans, saying: “bro should have slid a KC one in there to troll.” Imagine asking Mahomes to take a backseat for Brady. Another fan was laughing at the idea of Brady signing a meagre $10 million check, saying, “10 mil for tom brady 😂😂😂💀.” 

After picking Caleb Williams over Justin Fields, the Bears are trying new things but haven’t been able to shake their disappointing past. The Chicago team is 2-2 as it heads to week 5 of the 2024 season and Williams hasn’t performed the miracles that he was expected to. Maybe he’ll improve down the line.