Once again, Tom Brady is expected to be on the gridiron when the 2022NFL regular season gets underway. But a few months ago, everyone thought that this would be the first seasonin decades without the legendary quarterback.
On February 1st, Brady made a poston social media announcing he would step away from football. But it didn’t take long for him to change his mind. In fact, the following month he let the world know that he was back.
“These past two months I’ve realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands. That time will come. But it’s not now,” Brady wrote on March 13, adding that he had ‘unfinished business’ with Tampa . Even so, the 44-year-old superstar was sincereabouthis motivation to continue playingat his age compared to when he was younger.
Tom Brady suggests he felt pressured to retire from the NFL
“At this stage, it’s like 55% yes and 45% no,”Brady said, via ESPN. “It’s not 100-0. That’s just the reality.It’s not that I’m not 100% committed, it’s just as soon as I make the commitment to do it, it’s like ‘Ugh. All right, here we go.’ It’s like running a marathon. You can’t decide two weeks before the marathon, ‘Hey, I’m going to start running.’ We got right to free agency and I felt some pressure to do it and talked to the team and organization, and it all worked out.”
As everyone knows, Brady eventually decided to come back for at least another season. However, he revealed that, during the weeks after making the initial announcement, he was actually ready for his new life.
“Partly, you know, yes,“ Brady said when asked if he would have been ready to call it a career. “And I think when you’re their [Mahomes and Allen’s] age, if you were to ask me, ‘Are you going to play football next year?’ I would say there’s a 100% chance I’m playing. And I think as I’ve gotten older, that’s changed because I have other responsibilities.
“So the responsibilities are many people taking care of me and things that I have off the field that are really important to me like my family, my kids, my wife’s done an amazing job of that. That’s a big commitment from her, so it’s harder when you get older. I don’t even think they know what’s coming. Aaron [Rodgers] knows these things because your life gets bigger as we all do, our life gets more full — there’s more responsibilities.”
Brady, who turns 45 in August, is heading towards his 24th NFL season -third with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He knows that at some point he’ll hang them up, and that day might be getting closer. But until then, he will continue to write history, knowing that he has all the support he needs to do so.
