MIAMI — Football and American sports have had forever to be ready for this day. A decade, anyway. The day arrived on Saturday. We still weren’t ready. A 44-year-old man retired, crazy-old for an NFL quarterback or for any player. And yet it felt too soon.
We still weren’t ready to say goodbye to Tom Brady.
“End of an era” is one of those terms we apply too casually. So is the G.O.A.T. appellation — Greatest Of All Time.
Here there is no question they apply as if each was coined just for this man as we fathom suddenly putting the past tense on a career both epic and itself an epoch.
In the NFL, his career has been the biggest and best ever, and no debate, please, no “among the” hedge.
Beyond football, bring in Michael Jordan and whomever you wish, across all sports and all time. But have no doubt: Tom Brady’s spot on Mount Rushmore is reserved.
The news broke in an afternoon report by ESPN, which delivered it as unequivocal fact, not speculation. Not “expected to” retire, but a done deal.
It is thought Brady will wait until after the Super Bowl to himself make the news official. (Meantime ESPN is praying he won’t change his mind after Saturday’s World War III ‘BREAKING NEWS’ headline.)
On Saturday, Tom Brady Sr. told KRON-TV in San Francisco that his son (“Tommy”) had not yet made a decision. Brady’s agent Don Yee did not confirm or deny the report but said an announcement from his client would be forthcoming. Brady’s own company, TB12, initially tweeted out the retirement news then deleted it.
NFL Network confirmed ESPN’s report. But reports later Saturday indicated a decision had not yet been made. From my perspective, it sounds like Brady’s camp is not thrilled to be scooped by ESPN on their own announcement.
Assuming the veracity of report — that Brady has played his last game — there is hardly a way for hyperbole here even if that were the intent.
Brady has been the most impactful player and driving force for the past one-fifth of the NFL’s 100-plus year history. He is the single biggest reason the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills and New York Jets, the AFC East rivals he dominated for so long, have been irrelevant for the past two decades.
Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa had just turned 2 when Brady was reporting for his first New England Patriots training camp in 2000.
He retires as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer, just one season removed from winning yet another championship in that new uniform.
He leaves two NFL fan bases with him on the highest pedestal, and the other 30 wishing they’d had him. The respect he commanded was such, even teams and fans that suffered from his greatness had to marvel at watching history in progress.
A record seven Super Bowl championships across 22 seasons.
An NFL-record 624 touchdown passes and 84,250 passing yards.
The road to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, should be renamed Tom Brady Boulevard. The entire stretch will be one big passing lane.
There is zero question Brady still had game. He led the league in TDs and air yards this past season. He has my vote for MVP over Aaron Rodgers. Tampa Bay and coach Bruce Arians reportedly tried to talk him into one more season.
Family was the main reason he said no, that it was time to go. Health was a secondary issue. Third was the likelihood of a major Bucs roster overhaul and Brady not wanting to start over.
On his most recent Let’s Go podcast with Jim Gray, Brady had referred to himself as “satisfied” with his career, a hint to tea-leaf readers that he had retirement on his mind.
“It’s not always what I want,” he said. “It’s what we want as a family.”
(Brady reportedly will be building a new home just north of Miami, so ... howdy, neighbor?)
The craziest part about Brady’s historic ride?
Never saw it coming. Nobody did.
Brady is Exhibits A through Z for talent evaluation as an inexact science. By which I mean largely guesswork.
His college career at Michigan (30 TDs, 17 interceptions) foretold nothing special.
In the 2000 NFL draft, one weak at the QB position, he was seventh passer selected. He went in the sixth round, 199th overall.
Yes, the best minds in the NFL at the time believed 198 players were better than Tom Brady.
The quarterbacks drafted ahead of him that year? They included people named “Giovanni Carmazzi” and “Spergon Wynn.”
Twenty-two years later the man drafted 199th leaves as the greatest player ever at the most glamorous position in America’s biggest, most popular sport.
The Patriots and Buccaneers weren’t just blessed to have him — the NFL was.
He just left — well, he hasn’t even yet, at least not officially — and we miss him already.
