Ryan Griffin’s Long Life as Tom Brady’s Backups’ Backup

He’s fourth on the depth chart, he’s taken 10 snaps in 10 seasons and he’s most famous for holding up a drunk Brady. But there’s much more to Griffin’s run in Tampa Bay.

Two and a half years ago, after the Buccaneers pasted the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV, the most indelible image from the team’s booze-soaked championship boat parade along Hillsborough River was a plastered Tom Brady returning ashore, tottering past news cameras as he leaned on a teammate who looked more like a bouncer hauling a troublemaker out of a bar.

For the wider football world, the scene embodied how the typically vanilla Brady—who later winkingly blamed his drunkenness on too much avocado tequila—cut loose in celebration…