Tom Brady, arguably the best player in NFL history, proclaimed his retirement as of February 1st at 8AM. He released a video via Twitter stating, “I’ll get to the point right away, I’m retiring from football for good”. Early last year, 45-year-old Brady announced his retirement. He changed his mind 6 weeks later and carried out his final season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this past season.
He acknowledged this in his video admitting, “I know the process was a pretty big deal last time, so when I woke up this morning, I figured I'd just press record and let you guys know first.” He later stated, “You only get one super emotional retirement essay, and I used mine up last year, so really thank you guys so much to every single one of you for supporting me,” officially ending a notorious 23 season long career.
Brady is expected to step into the role as broadcaster, signing a 10 year contract for $375 million beginning next fall.
This season, as the oldest active player in the league, Brady led his team to the playoffs despite a mediocre 8-9 record. However, their season came to an abrupt end against the Dallas Cowboys in the wild card round, when he did not complete his final pass of his career to Julio Jones. However, this past season, the “worst” of his career, still consisted of 4,694 passing yards, the third most in the league, and a completion rate of 66.8%.
Over the course of his career, Brady has been decorated with seven super bowl rings, six with New England, and one with Tampa Bay. He is the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yards (89,214), and touchdown passes, and has been honored with MVP of the league three times. He ends his career at 45, after being recognized as the NFL's oldest quarterback, being named Super Bowl MVP (age 43), winning a Super Bowl as the starting quarterback (age 43), and to be named league MVP (age 40).
As Brady’s long standing NFL career officially comes to a close, his performance throughout the past 23 years will forever be recognized as the most impressive of his time.