Tom Brady away from Bucs through Aug. 20 due to ‘personal' reasons

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There will be no Tom Brady-Mike Vrabel reunion next week when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Tennessee Titans link up for joint practices.

That's because Brady is away from the Buccaneers while attending to personal matters and isn't expected to return until after the Bucs' preseason game against the Titans on Aug. 20, head coach Todd Bowles confirmed Thursday.

"Tom has been excused today," Bowles told reporters. "... He’ll be back somewhere around after (the) Tennessee (game). He’s going to deal with some personal things."

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NFL Media's Ian Rapoport reported earlier Thursday that Brady likely would be out "a few days," but it appears the 45-year-old quarterback will miss Tampa Bay's first two preseason games against the Miami Dolphins and Titans as well as all of next week's practices.

Bowles revealed that he and Brady had actually discussed the QB stepping away at this time.

"This is something we talked about before training camp started," Bowles said. "We allotted this time because he wanted to get in and get chemistry with the guys and go through two weeks of training camp, knowing he wasn’t going to play the first two games.

"He didn’t want to take away reps from Blaine [Gabbert] and Kyle [Trask] as well as ‘Griff’ [Ryan Griffin] as far as going into these next two games."

While Bowles didn't elaborate on Brady's personal matter, Rapoport suggested on "The Pat McAfee Show" that there's no "medical emergency" involved.

Brady has missed plenty of preseason games over the years and has earned the right not to participate in his 23rd NFL season. It's a bit unusual for the QB to miss a full week of preseason practices, however.

"We trust him. We talked about it," Bowles said. "It was scheduled way before training camp and he will not be here until after Tennessee."

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