WARE, England — The Bears took their shot at Tom Brady in 2020, though they weren’t banking on landing him.
Brady mentioned two weeks ago on a FOX broadcast that the Bears were “very stealth” in their recruitment when he was ready to leave the Patriots and he “was seriously considering them,” before choosing the Buccaneers.
Bears chairman George McCaskey confirmed Thursday that the team made a pitch to Brady, but he was not “directly” involved and Brady never came to Halas Hall for a visit.
“That seems like ancient history at this point,” McCaskey said at Hanbury Manor while the team practiced. “It didn’t work out for us. Worked out great for him in Tampa.”
Ryan Pace was the general manager at that point and desperately wanted to shift from struggling quarterback Mitch Trubisky that offseason. When the Brady dream didn’t come together, the Bears pivoted to a trade with the Jaguars for Nick Foles.
They dealt a fourth-round pick for Foles and picked up $24 million over three years on his contract.
He wasn’t quite as good as Brady, who won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers that season. Foles took the starting job from Trubisky early in the season, but got benched by the end of it. He was with the Bears two seasons and had 11 touchdown passes, eight interceptions and an 82.6 passer rating in 10 games.
“Any time you’re in a situation like that, you’re not putting all of your eggs in one basket,” McCaskey said. “You’re looking at alternatives… That was one option that we were looking at.”
The next year, Pace had a trade lined up with the Seahawks for quarterback Russell Wilson, but coach Pete Carroll blocked it. The Broncos traded for Wilson the next year in what was one of the most disastrous NFL trades in recent history.