TAMPA, Fla. — Tom Brady has yet to take a snap with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but he has already been benched.
Sort of.
Brady, a six-time Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots who signed with Tampa Bay as a free agent earlier this year, was told to leave a Tampa city park by a recreation worker, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Brady, 42, had been having some difficulty finding a place to work out due to restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The quarterback was working out at a downtown Tampa park when a Tampa Parks and Recreation staff worker noticed him, according to Mayor Jane Castor.
Castor, speaking to St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman during a Facebook live chat Monday night, revealed how Brady was, um, sacked.
“Oh, I’ve got to tell you this story, too. I always tell people, ‘Now, I’m not one to gossip so you didn’t hear this from me,'” Castor told Kriseman. “But you know our parks are closed down and so a lot of our parks staff, they patrol around just to make sure people aren’t doing contact sports and things and saw an individual working out in one of our downtown parks. And she went over to tell him that it was closed, and it was Tom Brady.”
“Oh my goodness," Kriseman said.
Brady may have been a little red-faced after the rebuke, but the City of Tampa also was apologetic, writing in a tweet that fans “can’t wait to welcome you and our entire community back with even bigger smiles.”
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“Until then, stay safe and stay home as much as you can to help flatten the curve.”
There was also some confusion as to whether Brady was penalized for his infraction. The closed captioning on the Facebook chat noted that the quarterback was “cited” at the park, while Castor said Brady was “sighted.” The City of Tampa later clarified that captioning in a tweet.