Captain Fear
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- Mar 20, 2019
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The Buccaneers built it. And amazingly enough, he came.
Since their pursuit of Tom Brady stands as the first big upset of the 2020 season, the Buccaneers were aware they needed to keep their plans secret.
According to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, the team even gave it a code name — Operation Shoeless Joe Jackson.
The “Field of Dreams” inspired moniker was the brainchild of Bucs director of player personnel John Spytek, who among other things was a big fan of the Kevin Costner baseball movie and a former college teammate of Brady at Michigan.
“Just having some fun with it,” Spytek said. “And making sure people don’t know what the hell we’re talking about if they overheard. We wanted to keep it as quiet as possible.”
If it hadn’t come together, it wouldn’t have stood as much of a surprise to most, considering the most decorated quarterback in history and the worst franchise in league history (by winning percentage) didn’t seem like a natural match.
But eventually, he walked out of the cornfield and into Tampa, lending a prophetic tone to Spytek’s mantra to General Manager Jason Licht: “If we build it, he will come.”