Byron Kennedy scored some great seats to watch the Bucs destroy the Chicago Bears with ease. The 29-year-old and a friend were in the front row behind one of the end zones.
It turned into a day he would never forget after Mike Evans scored a touchdown and then jumped in the stands to give him the ball. Unbeknownst to Evans was that ball being Brady’s 600th touchdown pass.
“I was taking a video, and I switched it to my face, and then I went to switch it back to facing (the field), and when I did that, Mike Evans was running at me,” Kennedy told the St. Petersburg Times. “Right when I looked down, he jumped up and gave me a hug and handed me the ball.”
Evans admitted on Twitter that he didn’t realize how important that football was in the moment. Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians certainly did.
“I said, ‘You’re going to have to go give that guy two jerseys to get that ball back,’” Arians said after the 38-3 win. “It was like, ‘Either give him two of Tom’s (jerseys), but you need to get that ball back for him.’”
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We now have an interview with the guy where he admitted that he turned down the Bucs trainer twice before eventually giving the ball back.
“I knew how much it meant to Tom,” he said, “and I was willing to trade.”
The Athletic’s Greg Auman said the Bucs gave Kennedy a replacement football and a $1,000 gift card to the team store. It’s a pretty lopsided trade given that Sports memorabilia experts say that football could have sold at auction for as much as $750,000.
At least, he’ll always have the memories as well as millions of people on social media blasting him for giving that ball back.
