Would Brady consider retirement?

by Gary Shelton on January 21, 2022

in general

Might Brady call it a career?/(Tori Richman/Tampa Bay Buccaneers via AP)

Friday, 4 a.m.

It has been the NFL's most successful journey. It has been one of the longest, and most accomplished, treks in in history.

But might this be the end of it?

Tom Brady, the best quarterback ever to throw a pass, faces a strong Los Angeles Rams' team Sunday. And after that, who knows? Certainly, there is more greatness behind him than in front of him now. And part of you allows yourself to wonder: If he loses, could it be the last moment of the eternal man?












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It's possible. Former Patriots teammate Rob Ninkovich suggested that Brady might retire after this season, which isn't really much of a stab seeing that Brady is 44 years old. Heck, people have been retiring Brady for years.

But there will come a time when Brady looks over his career, sighs and says "that's enough." I'm sure he won't call a guy like Rob Ninkovich to discuss it, but sure, it could happen.

And if that's a possibility, well, you should do one thing. You should savor it.

The career of Brady is staggering. There was a time I thought I thought Johnny Unitas was the best quarterback ever. Then I thought it was Joe Montana. Peyton Manning was great.

And Brady won as many Super Bowls as all of them combined.

There is a relentlessness to Brady's ambition, a fire to competitiveness. He never allowed himself to get old, or satisfied. That's the reason you might believe he'll try it again. Once a 44-year-old man walks away, he doesn't come back.

Of course, if Brady wins, his ambition continues to live. And yes, the Bucs have avenged regular season losses to New Orleans and Kansas City in the last two playoffs.

“I think all of these games are little bit independent from one another," Brady said. "Yeah, we played them earlier in the year, but it’s a very different team we had, and I think a little bit of a different team they had too, so they are each their own individual type of game. They’re going to require their own individual performance and stuff. I think the point is it doesn’t really matter what happened in October when we played them last. It’s really about this game and what we learned from the last game.

"Any time you know your opponent I think that gives you a little bit of understanding of kind of what they do well, things you wish you would’ve done. But it’s a very talented football team [and] one of the great teams in the NFL – really good offense, tremendous defense, really well-coached, great specialists. It’s going to be a very, very difficult game for us.”

Brady is 35-11 in his playoff career.

“I think it’s just a credit to all the great teams I’ve been on," Brady said. "I’ve just been a part of so many great teams over a long period of time. I love that I’ve been able to do it for as long as I have. I love the game and I love being out there with my teammates. We’ve just had a lot of success over a lot of years trying to do the right thing. What we’ve done here the last two seasons has been a lot of fun for me to learn and grow with these players and our organization. We’ve put ourselves in good position. Now we have to go take advantage of it.”

The Bucs paly against the Rams at 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon at Raymond James Stadium.

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