Jimmy Garoppolo may never face Denver Broncos as a Raider

Although not as many major media outlets are picking up on it, there's quite a bit of smoke right now regarding what could be an absolute dumpster fire of a situation for one of the Denver Broncos' top division rivals, the Las Vegas Raiders. It was recently reported that NFL legend Tom Brady is in talks to soon become part-owner of the Raiders, though at the beginning of the offseason, many felt like he would be playing for the Raiders instead.

Well, is the idea of Brady playing for the Raiders actually off the table? On the surface, it would appear that the answer to that question is yes. But when you dig a little deeper beneath the surface, you'll come to find that there might actually be some teeth to the rumors that Brady could come out of retirement and play for the Raiders in 2023.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk has been arguably leading the charge when it comes to gathering all the possible evidence for a Tom Brady comeback, part II. He recently published a post on his site regarding "offshore sports books" having Tom Brady as the odds-on favorite to be the Raiders' quarterback this year if Jimmy Garoppolo isn't.

More interesting and certainly more substantial is the recent report that Jimmy Garoppolo is now in the recovery process from a procedure done on his injured foot back in March.

This report caused Florio over at Pro Football Talk to do some additional detective work, which included obtaining the entire Jimmy Garoppolo/Raiders contract and looking into some of the details that had changed since he initially signed back in March. One detail, in particular, has led Florio to believe there is a chance that Garoppolo never plays for the Raiders, which would mean he never plays against the Denver Broncos despite the fact that he's expected to help get Vegas back to the postseason ASAP.

"Tom Brady is retired. Unless he isn’t.

We know Brady is buying a slice of the Raiders, pending approval of the league at large. We also now know that Jimmy Garoppolo might never play for the Raiders, given a foot injury from 2022 that sparked a massive overhaul of his Vegas contract — including the entire elimination of his $11.25 million signing bonus.

The contractual language, which we uncovered on Saturday, demonstrates the very real possibility that Garoppolo will never play for the Raiders."

- Mike Florio (PFT)

It would seem, at this point, that Jimmy Garoppolo's availability for the season is very much in question. The Raiders revoking his signing bonus and turning it into a non-guaranteed portion of his base salary is as strong of an indicator as any that the team doesn't plan on him being available, and they can get out of the contract basically at any point by failing Garoppolo on a physical.

The sticky situation for the Raiders is that Garoppolo plays the game's most important position, and they put all their eggs into that basket after presumably letting go of Derek Carr with hope that Tom Brady would play for them. The Raiders can't just outright fail Garoppolo on a physical right now, but why? Well, because they don't currently have a viable alternative. They can't just turn to Tom Brady right at this point in time, because maybe Brady hasn't made that decision to play again just yet.

Brady retired for the second consecutive offseason in 2023, but it appears this time around, he actually filed the paperwork with the league. Getting out of that wouldn't be an issue, and Brady is a free agent if and when he decides to retire, so there's no tampering or anything like that going on. And as Brady pursues ownership stake in the Raiders, he's undoubtedly had contact with others in the organization besides Mark Davis, which would include the likes of Josh McDaniels and Davante Adams.

That's purely speculation, but it simply makes sense.

The other intriguing piece in all of this is that there has been very little in the way of Brady officially entering into the 10-year, $375 million contract with FOX that was supposed to kick in as soon as he officially retired from the NFL. I think Brady's keeping that door open, similar to the way we saw Michael Jordan come out of retirement for a second time after he became part-owner of the Washington Wizards over 20 years ago.

Think about it from Brady's perspective. He can still play at a high level. He would be playing in an offense he's familiar with. He'd have arguably the best wide receiver in the league as his go-to target. The Raiders have no shortage of prime time appearances this year. There's no income tax for Vegas players. It's a pretty sweet gig if you can get it.

From the Denver Broncos' perspective, nobody wants any part of this. Brady has already cemented himself as a top-tier enemy of the Broncos throughout his career and both sides have had their moments against each other. The thought of playing Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, and Justin Herbert for six of the team's 17 games this season? Well, that's nightmare fuel.

We'll see over the course of the next couple of months how everything transpires, but I think these rumors could only continue to heat up as the summer progresses.