UFC president Dana White said he helped set up a deal for Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski to join the Las Vegas Raiders during the 2020 free agency period, but then-Raiders head coach Jon Gruden “blew the deal up.”
White told the story during the “UFC with the Gronks” broadcast for UFC 278 on Saturday night. He said he never planned to tell the story, until Gronkowski asked him about it on the broadcast.
“I worked to put that deal together for Brady and Gronk to come to the Raiders,” White said. “And it was almost a done deal. And at the last minute, Gruden blew the deal up and said that he didn’t want them. And all hell broke loose, man. It was crazy.
“Brady was already looking at houses and it wasn’t being said yet that Gronk was coming. So Las Vegas would have had Brady and Gronk that year [Buccaneers] won the Super Bowl, except Gruden blew the deal up. And there’s so much story that goes along with this behind the scenes. And I was never going to tell that story until Gronk just said it.”
Added Gronkowski: “Dana, that’s exactly what happened.”
The deal was in early 2020 when Brady, then a six-time Super Bowl winner with the New England Patriots, was entering free agency with an eye on leaving New England. Gronkowski was under contract with the Patriots at the time, although he had been retired for a year.
Brady ultimately signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who worked out a trade with the Patriots to bring Gronkowski to town. They won the Super Bowl that first season together with head coach Bruce Arians in February 2021.
“I’m glad it didn’t go through,” Gronkowski said. “It all worked out for the best, man. I’m glad we went to Tampa, man. It just worked out. I love that place.”
It did not work out in the end for Gruden, who resigned as head coach of the Raiders in October 2021. It came after reports detailing the use of racist, homophobic and misogynistic terms used by Gruden in emails discovered as part of a cache of 650,000 of them collected during the league’s workplace investigation into the Washington franchise. Gruden is suing for damages.
Gronkowski retired again this past June. Brady announced his retirement in February. It lasted 40 days before he announced that he would return to the Buccaneers. They kick off Week 1 with a trip to the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 11.