James Bradberry’s life changed on Valentine’s Day. What happens next is out of his hands
One question into talking with James Bradberry and he slips in that he has a bit of news to share.
He mentions it casually as he describes how he has been spending his time this offseason: “I’ve been working out, had a daughter on Valentine’s Day.”
There aren’t any pictures or references of his new arrival on social media. Being loud has never been his style ... but not even a birth announcement?
“I don’t want anybody thinking my baby’s ugly or calling my baby ugly,” Bradberry said.
To be clear, he doesn’t think Xena Reign Bradberry, his firstborn child, is anything but beautiful. And neither would anyone else. But that’s the peril of being a professional athlete on social media — you’re a target for bullying.
He said he got called “trash” on social media the other day, despite the Panthers having not played a game since Dec. 29. He doesn’t want to subject his daughter to the same hate speech.
With Bradberry becoming a father, it’s easier to connect the dots on how the start of a new life is impacting him. Sitting across from him at a coffee shop in Charlotte’s South End, the bags under his eyes are a little bit bigger than when he last spoke at his locker.
“I’m still getting used to it, but I definitely look at the world a little differently,” Bradberry said. “It’s really all about her. Everything I do is about her.”
Bradberry should be stressed but he’s not. He’s a free agent, and when the new league year begins in two weeks, he has no idea which team will be signing his paycheck. If anything, he’s tired and needs that cup of coffee.
Despite being in the midst of the biggest offseason of his career, the past two months have been “chill” for the fourth-year cornerback out of Samford. This offseason revolves around his daughter. He has been enjoying the time off, relaxing and taking trips back home to Alabama, not thinking too much about what happened last season. He was just glad to end the year healthy.
The NFL season is when he is stressed — when he’s at “a 10.” There’s so much he wants to go well, and so much that can go wrong.
“Not living up to expectations, not living up to your potential, letting your teammates down,” Bradberry says when asked about what makes him stressed, “getting scored on by Julio (Jones), Mike Evans, Michael Thomas. It’s a lot … getting injured.”
During the offseason, he says he’s more around a two. Cool and collected. That’s no easy feat considering his situation.
His future with the Panthers, who drafted him No. 62 in 2016, has never been more in doubt. Using the franchise tag (worth at least $16 million) is unlikely at this time, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge. The Panthers are entering an era of change. Paying him that much doesn’t fit their M.O., despite Bradberry saying that he would play under the tag, partly due to the potential lockout in 2021 if the new CBA is not passed.
The Panthers are likely to be outbid for his services in terms of a long-term deal. There have been reports of more than 20 teams interested in him and a price tag of around $15 million a year, which is too high for Carolina.
Although he’d like to remain in Charlotte, he said that his ideal scenario isn’t necessarily tied to the Panthers.
“Ideal would be a long-term contract, just so I could have some security,” Bradberry said. “That’s ideal.”
Despite all of this, and an offseason that will decide what he calls the “second stage” of his career, Bradberry is calm.
He said he has to be. He has no other option.
Putting things in perspective
Bradberry and his sister, Takia, were raised by a single mother, Rosie, near Birmingham, Alabama. His goal with his next contract is to allow his mother to retire and do whatever she desires — which he knows may mean spending a lot of time around him and his daughter.
“Whenever she calls me, it’s not really about me anymore,” he said.
Having someone else dependent on you puts everything in perspective. Xena Reign has provided more worry than considering where he’ll play next.
“(The offseason) can be stressful, but really I try not to overthink too many things because when I start overthinking that’s when you start adding more to your stress level,” Bradberry said. “(With) my daughter, I’m overthinking everything, because I don’t want to hurt her, I don’t want to drop her, I don’t want to do anything where I put her life in jeopardy or put her in jeopardy in general.
“I know football can handle itself, so I really don’t think about it too much.”
The focus of his offseason has shifted from what it was in the past. Instead of playing video games, working out on his own schedule (including yoga) and spending his hours however he chooses, his schedule is now tied to feedings and wet diapers.
The biggest offseason of his career
Josh Norman and Bradberry shouldn’t be linked.
They never played together, and they are two very different people.
But the 2016 offseason that Norman was franchise tagged and then un-franchise tagged by Carolina and former general manager Dave Gettleman, was the same offseason that Bradberry was brought to the Panthers as one of three corners they selected in that year’s draft. He’s the only of the three who played for the Panthers for more than two seasons.
He became Carolina’s top cornerback, and now, like Norman four years ago, it’s Bradberry’s turn to test the market.
Bradberry is more reserved than Norman. He’s also less heralded across the NFL than Norman was, even though he’s coming off his best season to date, finishing with a career-high three interceptions (tied for the most on the team), 12 passes defensed and 65 tackles.
“I don’t want to say that his personality, you know, got him to (be an) All-Pro, Pro Bowl guy, because I watched his film, and, you know, he played lights out in 2015,” Bradberry said of Norman. “I think it’s combination of both. I feel like if I was more talkative on the field, I probably would have more recognition. But I think I play well, too, so I don’t know what it is. It’s just not my year right here — 2019-20 wasn’t my year. I’ll say that. It wasn’t my time. Everything’s about timing.”
There’s a stigma often slapped on cornerbacks that they’re loud and enjoy being the center of attention. That’s not Bradberry.
He’s never going to be the overly showy guy, the one who commands headlines for his words. When Bradberry is doing his job, his name should rarely come up on a TV broadcast. That’s what playing cornerback means, and as a result, he has can slip under the radar.
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Over the past four years, he has totaled eight interceptions, 279 tackles and two forced fumbles. Week after week, he’s matched against the the NFL’s best wide receivers. In the NFC South, especially, that is no easy feat. All four original NFC Pro Bowl receivers this past year came from the South: Michael Thomas, Julio Jones, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.
He allowed a completion percentage of 59.8 percent this past season (189th) and 11.1 yards per completion. On a bad defense in 2019, Bradberry was a positive. How he performed against the the NFL’s best will be what inevitably makes him one of the highest paid corners in the NFL next year.
Everything is setting up for 2020-21 to be his time.
“At the end of the day, I feel like I’m a number one corner, I’ve been a number one corner the last few years, I feel like I’m a number one guy,” Bradberry said.
And he still has more to prove.
“I feel like I went out there and actually showed against those guys that I was a hell of a corner, a high-caliber corner. But I wanted to make it to the Pro Bowl, I wanted to be an All-Pro, I wanted to be a Super Bowl champion,” Bradberry said. “I didn’t get to do those things. (There are) still got some things I’ve got to get done.”
The feeling of the unknown that’s accompanying his next destination is similar, he said, to when he was waiting to get drafted.
Pre-draft grades projected him to be a seventh-rounder or an undrafted free agent. He held onto that grade for months despite hearing he could go as high as the first round with his strong NFL Scouting Combine performance, and his name started to gain more attention.
“When I’m sitting alone, I’m just thinking, if you would have asked me this four years ago, if I pictured myself getting paid as one of the top premier corners, I would have been like, ‘Nah, I can’t see myself doing that,’ ” Bradberry said. “Beforehand, I thought I was just going to be a guy that was an undrafted free agency. I was a seventh round to a free agency guy.
“I thought I was going to be fighting my whole career. It’s a shock for real.”
At this point, Bradberry just wants to play. He met briefly with the coaching staff in Carolina, but come March 18, he knows there’s a good chance he’ll be looking for a new place to work out instead of Bank of America Stadium.
“It’s like on game day, you prepare yourself throughout the whole week, I played the season, I prepared myself to enter free agency, so when I get to Sunday, I just let my instincts take over,” Bradberry said. “I let everything else happen.”
For now he’ll stay calm and drink a cup of coffee, with a little bit of honey, to give him the energy to change another diaper of his beautiful baby girl.
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
