NEW YORK — The G.O.A.T. is ready to say goodbye.
Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion, five-time Super Bowl MVP, three-time NFL MVP, the Greatest of All Time, officially announced on Tuesday that he’s stepping away after 22 decorated seasons.
“I have always believed the sport of football is an “all-in” proposition — if a 100% competitive commitment isn’t there, you won’t succeed, and success is what I love so much about our game,” Brady wrote to his social media pages Tuesday. “There is a physical, mental and emotional challenge EVERY single day that has allowed me to maximize my highest potential. I have tried my very best these last 22 years. There are no shortcuts to success on the field or in life.
“This is difficult for me to write, but here it goes: I am not going to make that competitive commitment anymore. I have loved my NFL career, and now it is time to focus my time and energy on other things that require my attention.”
Brady’s Hall of Fame legacy will be defined by more than his constant winning, unprecedented longevity and countless records. He’ll also be remembered for going out on top, even at age 44.
He won a Super Bowl in 2020 in his first year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He’s been the winning quarterback in four of the last eight Super Bowls. And most notably, he played at an MVP level in 2021, his final NFL season.
“What’s amazing is he can still play,” one league source said. “He didn’t have to retire because of his age.”
All-time great Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders went out on top, but he played his 10th and final season at age 30 in 1998 before calling it quits.
Brady’s career covered parts of seven United States Presidential terms.
The kid from San Mateo, Calif., grew up rooting for Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers. Brady fought for playing time in college at Michigan, then famously slipped to the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft, where Bill Belichick and the Patriots picked him.
A devastating 2001 hit by Jets linebacker Mo Lewis that hospitalized Patriots starting QB Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an opportunity that Brady never gave back.
Bledsoe did replace an injured Brady in that year’s AFC Championship win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, but Belichick went right back to Brady, and New England bested the St. Louis Rams, 20-17, in Super Bowl XXXVI.
That kicked off a run of three Super Bowl wins in a four-year span, with wins over the Carolina Panthers and Philadelphia Eagles, laying the foundation for one of the greatest dynasties in football and sports history.
Brady’s career was marked by some good fortune, namely in that year’s AFC Divisional win over the Oakland Raiders, known now as the Tuck Rule Game.
A Charles Woodson sack produced a Brady fumble that was overturned to an incomplete pass. Adam Vinatieri made a 45-yard field goal in the snow to send it to overtime, and another in OT for the win.
Belichick’s defenses ranked sixth, first and second in the league during those first three championship seasons. But Brady kept making plays and finding ways to get better, too.
Brady won the first of his three NFL MVP awards on a 16-0 Patriots team in 2007. He threw 50 TD passes with Randy Moss as his unstoppable primary weapon.
Eli Manning’s Giants toppled Brady and the Patriots in his next two Super Bowl appearances: at Super Bowl XLII to ruin a perfect 2007 season, and again at Super Bowl XLII to conclude 2011.
But Brady persisted through a torn ACL in the 2008 opener and those defeats. He won a second MVP in 2010.
Then he and Belichick sent the Patriots on another historic run of championships: three Super Bowl titles and four appearances in a five-season span from 2014-18.
The Patriots actually drafted Brady’s successor Jimmy Garoppolo in 2014 out of Eastern Illinois, but with the support of owner Robert Kraft, Brady got Garoppolo traded to the 49ers and kept his job.
The dynamic was far from perfect behind the tall proverbial walls of the Foxborough Patriots complex, but Belichick and Brady found a way to keep winning at a record rate.
A friendship and business relationship with controversial trainer Alex Guerrero created friction inside the Patriots’ building, too. Brady’s regimen curiously and incredibly actually yielded improved results the older he got, especially in his final two years in Tampa.
By the end, Brady had appeared in a ridiculous 10 Super Bowls in his 22 NFL seasons and won seven of them, winning five MVP awards in the big game. Those are all NFL records.
He finished with an astounding 35-12 career postseason record in 47 playoff games, which added up to almost three extra full 16-game seasons of football.
He got there by keeping the chip on his shoulder from his NFL draft slide to the sixth round.
Brady was suspended by the league for the first four games of the 2016 season after an investigation into allegations that Brady and the Patriots had deflated footballs to gain a competitive advantage in the 2014 AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts.
The Patriots had blown out the Colts on their way to beating the Seahawks, 28-24, on Malcom Butler’s goal line interception of Russell Wilson in Super Bowl XLIX.
Brady responded to the suspension by winning his fourth Super Bowl that 2016 season, engineering an all-time comeback to beat the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI. The Patriots trailed 28-3 late in the third quarter and won the game, 34-28, in OT.
Nick Foles’ Eagles won a shootout with Brady and the Patriots in Super Bowl LII the following year, 41-33, ending Brady’s third MVP season on a sour note. But Belichick and Brady responded by snuffing out Sean McVay’s L.A. Rams, 13-3, in Super Bowl LIII the following year for their sixth title together.
Eventually, of course, Brady tired of Belichick’s demanding ways, and with the organization and quarterback on different pages about how long he could keep playing, he took his talents to a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team with a less restrictive coach, Bruce Arians.
Brady got to play GM, recruiting players like Patriots buddy Rob Gronkowski and controversial receiver Antonio Brown to Florida, and won his seventh Super Bowl to prove he could win without one of the greatest coaches of all time.
Brady flaunted the NFL’s mask-wearing policies often during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and was the only member of the Bucs’ team or staff seen not wearing a mask on the field after making the Bucs the first team to ever win a Super Bowl on its home field.
Amazingly, nevertheless, Brady threw more touchdowns in his 40s (168) than he did in his 20s (147). He was moving in the pocket, throwing on the run and launching the ball downfield at age 44 this season better than he ever had.
He actually threw for a career high 5,316 yards this season, and had 43 TD passes (second most in his career) to only six interceptions.
Last weekend, ESPN reported that Brady was retiring. Brady and his camp pushed back on the news, insisting he hadn’t decided yet. But clearly Brady was just trying to control the narrative and announce it on his own terms.
Brady’s announcement surprisingly thanked only the Buccaneers fans and team, and made no mention of the Patriots, which was a bad look. He made amends a couple hours later by thanking the Patriots and their fans after Kraft posted a statement honoring him.
True to his career, though, even Brady’s retirement involved some drama, some friction, some uncomfortable moments before resolution arrived.
And what we will remember most of all about Brady is that while he retired at 44, if he wanted to keep playing, he could have. To be sure, he knows we know that, too.
