Tom Brady retires from NFL, this time for good after iconic career featuring seven Super Bowl rings

The all-time great quarterback, who briefly retired a year ago only to quickly reverse his decision and play this last season at 45 years old, said in a brief video posted to social media on Wednesday that he was done with the sport that he dominated for over two decades.

“I’m retiring, for good,” he said. He added in the short message that, as far as posting a more emotional essay, “I used mine up last year.”

Brady retires with little dispute that he’s the most accomplished quarterback in NFL history. He won seven Super Bowls, six with the New England Patriots and one more with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he played the final three seasons of his career, a tenure that lasted far longer than anyone could have imagined.

If Brady sticks to his plan, his next stop will be the broadcasting booth. Last off-season, Fox said it had signed Brady to become an NFL analyst and call games after his retirement. Brady doesn’t plan to be part of the upcoming Super Bowl broadcast on Fox this month, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Brady finishes his career with a stranglehold on the record books. His 89,214 passing yards and 649 touchdowns through the air are both easily the most ever. So are his seven Super Bowl rings. He played at a high level longer than anyone ever had while tormenting defences with his sixth-sense to feel incoming pass rushers and clinically move the ball down the field. He was a living instructional video as the NFL’s ultimate pocket passer.

Speculation raged a year ago whether Brady would retire, and after days of rumours and reports, he said he was done. That lasted barely a month. He came back to play again for the Buccaneers after having previously said his goal was to play until he was 45. His choice to give it a go preceded a rocky year — on and off-the-field for Brady.

After two incredibly successful seasons in Tampa Bay, including the first when the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl, the team struggled through the 2022 campaign. Injuries and the departure of some of the talent that had surrounded Brady plagued the team, while Brady himself had one of the worst seasons of his career.

Tampa Bay finished the season 8-9, but still managed to win its division. The campaign ended with a 31-14 blowout loss to the Dallas Cowboys in the opening round of the playoffs.

Brady also faced tumult away from the gridiron. His longtime marriage to businesswoman and supermodel Gisele Bündchen, who had publicly expressed her concerns about her husband playing a violent sport for so long, disintegrated in a high-profile divorce. He has also been sued for his role as a pitchman for the embattled FTX crypto exchange.

Still, it was uncertain when his season ended whether Brady would retire or attempt to play as a 46-year-old. His contract was up with the Buccaneers, which would have allowed him to become a free agent again. If he chose not to return to the Buccaneers, there was little doubt he would have found a home with a new team willing to hitch its wagon to him for a season.

But before this Super Bowl between the Eagles and Chiefs — featuring two quarterbacks in their 20s and one, Jalen Hurts, who is more than two decades younger than Brady — Brady said he was done.

A former sixth-round pick by the Patriots in the 2000 NFL draft out of the University of Michigan, Brady initially emerged as one of the game’s great underdog stories. He took over during his second season after star Drew Bledsoe suffered an injury and led New England to its first ever Super Bowl victory that year. The Patriots went on to win two more over the next three years.

Alongside coach Bill Belichick, the pair established an unrivalled dynasty. After 2002, the Pats missed the playoffs just once during his time there, and that was in 2008 when Brady was hurt at the start of the season. The team went a remarkable 16-0 in 2007, with one of the best offences in NFL history, before losing to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl, the first of two losses to them in the season’s final game.

Along the way, Brady and Belichick became the NFL’s boogeymen. Fans of the Jets and Bills had to watch their teams get ritually demolished by the Patriots, often twice a year. Raiders supporters lament the famous “tuck rule” play from the 2001 season’s playoffs and still contend Brady fumbled the ball.

The Patriots also received scrutiny for allegedly untoward tactics, namely the late 2000s Spygate scandal in which the NFL fined Belichick and punished the team for violating league rules by videotaping coaches on the opposing sidelines. Brady was also accused of wrongdoing. He was suspended for four games in 2016 after being accused of ordering the deflation of footballs during the 2014 AFC Championship game — allegations he vigorously denied in a protracted battle pitting the game’s biggest star against the league.

Brady had the last laugh when he returned from the suspension to win his fifth Super Bowl. He won another one two years later.

But after his final season in New England, as a 42-year-old in 2019, his play had diminished. For a player who had already played at an elite level well past an NFL player’s standard expiration date, it looked like time had finally caught up to him.

After signing with the Buccaneers in free agency, though, he appeared reinvigorated. Protected by an elite offensive line and buoyed by some of the best passing weapons in the league, including his longtime Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski who unretired to join him in Tampa Bay, Brady once again was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. His first year with the team in 2020 produced his seventh Super Bowl, and the team remained one of the best again in 2021.

That success cratered this past year. Brady’s efficiency waned and he lost more games than he ever did in a single season. The question after it ended was whether he would give it a go to try and find another burst of life somewhere else.

Brady opted not to find out. He retired, in his own words, “for good.”

– The Wall Street Journal