Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady missed practice Thursday for personal reasons and will not return to the team until after the Bucs’ second preseason game on Aug. 20 against the Titans, head coach Todd Bowles told reporters.
“Tom has been excused today,” Bowles said. “He’ll be back sometime after Tennessee. He’s going to deal with some personal things.
“This is something we talked about before training camp started. We allotted this time because he wanted to get in and get chemistry with the guys and go through two weeks of training camp. Knowing he wasn’t going to play the first two games, he didn’t want to take away reps from Blaine (Gabbert) and Kyle (Trask), as well as (Ryan Griffin), as far as going into these next two games.”
The Bucs and Miami Dolphins have engaged in joint practices the past two days and will face off in their respective preseason openers Saturday night. Bowles previously said Brady would not play in the game.
Although Bowles remained opaque on the details of Brady’s absence, the coach indicated that if it was important to Brady, it was important to the Bucs.
“It’s something he needs to handle,” Bowles said. “We trust him. We talked about it. It was scheduled way before training camp.”
Bowles downplayed any concern when asked if he has any doubt Brady will play in the regular-season opener on Sept. 11 against the Cowboys.
“Obviously, there’s always going to be doubt,” Bowles said, “but I have a pretty high level of confidence, yes.”
It’s already been a bit of a tricky camp for Bowles in his first camp running the Bucs in terms of missing key figures. The Buccaneers saw starting center Ryan Jensen go down with a serious knee injury that will keep him out indefinitely.
The receiver room also took a hit, with Mike Evans dealing with a hamstring injury and Russell Gage leaving practice with a leg injury this week. Breshad Perriman (leg) has also been injured for most of training camp.