With a new stadium, low ticket sales and little eye appeal, the Los Angeles Chargers need to make a huge move. Tom Brady is perfect.
Desperation is a cheap cologne, and the Los Angeles Chargers stink of it.
After cutting ties with longtime star quarterback Philip Rivers on Monday, the Chargers are making their position clear. They need sizzle entering SoFi Stadium come September.
You know who brings sizzle? Tom Brady.
Brady is coming off arguably the worst year of his career. At 42 years old — and turning 43 in August — he looked his age. Brady threw the ball away quicker, wasn’t as nimble in the pocket, didn’t turn bad receivers into average ones, and so forth.
Guess what? He’s still Tom Brady.
Since moving to Los Angeles two years ago, the Chargers fan base has been more rumor than anything else. The team can barely fill up a soccer stadium, and often the congregation is overwhelmingly against them. It’s a total and complete failure, let alone an embarrassment.
The reports have been out there suggesting the Chargers can’t sell tickets to their new shared palace in Carson. The Los Angeles Rams will always be get top billing in the City of Angels, largely because they played there from 1946-94 before a jaunt to St. Louis for a few decades.
Los Angeles has to find some way to bring fans — Chargers fans — to the gates. Ownership needs to sell Private Seating Licenses. It needs a good showing. If a brand-new stadium is half empty come September and October, the laughs from San Diego will be deafening. So will the groans from Park Avenue.
Brady would largely fix those issues. The right move for the long-term health of the team is drafting a quarterback with the sixth-overall pick. The right move for 2020, and for ownership to save face, is to make Brady a Godfather offer. Two years, $75 million, fully guaranteed.
By the way, both things can happen.
It must be said, the New England Patriots perhaps match offers to Brady. Maybe Brady gets cold feet and goes back to Foxborough for less money. Maybe he simply decides playing behind a porous offensive line isn’t what he wants at 43. All valid.
Still, the Chargers have to make their best pitch. Use geography. Use the weather. Use their wallet.
Brady may not solve their on-field problems. He’s likely not making Los Angeles better than Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, although who doesn’t want that matchup twice per season?
Ultimately, Brady is still box office, and he’s a great cleanser for the current aroma in Los Angeles.