After an offseason filled with questions about his football future and tenuous relationships with his team, Tom Brady opened up.
After an offseason filled with questions about his football future and tenuous relationships within the organization, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady restated his goal of playing until age 45.
“I would love to play five more years — 41,42,43,44,45,” Brady, who turned 41 on Aug. 31, said in a new episode of “ Tom vs. Time ” on Facebook. “It’ll be a challenge for me. I don’t think it’s going to be easy.”
Brady’s wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, has made no secret of her attempts to coerce her husband into retirement, and ESPN’s Dianna Russini fueled rumors of his impending football end when she suggested before the Super Bowl in February that the five-time champion “ could be hanging it up .”
The final episode of last season’s “Tom vs. Time” series ended in uncertainty, with the quarterback asking, “What are we doing this for? Who are we doing this for? Why are we doing this?” Brady made waves again in June when he told Oprah Winfrey of retirement, “I think about it more now than I used to. I think I’m seeing that there’s definitely an end coming, sooner rather than later.” He doubled down on those sentiments in an interview with his website last week, adding, “ I can see the end line now. ”
None of this comes as a surprise for Brady, who is entering his 19th NFL season with five Super Bowl titles, four Super Bowl MVP trophies, three regular-season MVP awards and too many records to count. Unless he’s not actually human, it’s obvious he is closer to the end of his career than the beginning.
Brady’s father suggested age 45 was his son’s goal back in 2016. Conceding that retirement could come sooner via injury or two more Super Bowl rings, Brady has referenced that number multiple times this year, telling a conference he wants to play until his mid-forties and commenting “ cuarento y cinco ” (45 in Spanish) on an ESPN Instagram post about his playing future. However, after restructuring his contact through the 2019 season last month, he evaded a question about drawing a hard line at 45.
Beneath it all were questions about Brady’s relationship with Patriots coach Bill Belichick and a New England dynasty showing signs of decay. The QB also addressed this on Wednesday’s “Tom vs. Time.”
Brady made headlines by skipping the Patriots’ voluntary Offseason Team Activities in May and June. His mother, Galynn, has also been battling breast cancer in recent years. Clearly, Brady placed a priority on his family, taking trips to Brazil, Monaco and Qatar around the time his teammates were participating in OTAs, a break from years past when the quarterback won awards for his attendance.
Good for Brady. He’s earned some vacation days over the past two decades.
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Ben Rohrbach is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
