Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers got off easy when a fan who obtained the football thrown by the star quarterback for his 600th touchdown pass gave it back to the team during Sunday’s game.
But Brady rubbed it in Monday, chiding spectator Byron Kennedy for surrendering his bargaining power by returning the memento after a brief negotiation. (Watch the video below.)
“Byron realized he lost all his leverage by giving the ball away,” Brady told Peyton and Archie Manning on ESPN2′s “Monday Night Football” ManningCast. “He should have held it and then get as much leverage as possible.”
Peyton Manning called it “an amateur move.”
“If he would have held it he would have been sitting in the Tom Brady suite for the rest of the season,” Manning joked.
Brady’s scoring throw to Mike Evans on Sunday in the Bucs’ victory over the Chicago Bears made him the only NFL quarterback ever to throw 600 touchdown passes.
Evans had no idea of the milestone when he caught the ball and gave it to Kennedy in the stands.
When a Bucs negotiator walked over to ask what Kennedy wanted for the return of the ball, the fan accepted far short of the hundreds of thousands of dollars the item would fetch on the memorabilia market, according to estimates.
But Brady noted that Kennedy still made out “pretty well” ― autographed items from Brady and Evans, tickets for the rest of this season and all of next season, and $1,000 of Bucs merch credit.
“I am also giving him a Bitcoin ― which that’s pretty cool, too,” added Brady, who’s now pitching a cryptocurrency exchange.
Kennedy later said he’d love to play a round of golf with Brady.
Maybe throw that in with the Bitcoin, superstar?