Tom Brady played football for 22 years before briefly calling it quits — and both he and Gisele Bundchen have remained vocal about his retirement plans
Not an easy decision. Tom Brady said a lot about his retirement over the years — both before his brief exit from the NFL in February 2022 and after his March 2022 comeback.
The football star, who played for the New England Patriots for 20 years before becoming a Tampa Bay Buccaneer in spring 2020, made it clear over the years that he wasn’t ready to stop playing football despite his age, even joking about his retirement in commercials.
However, the oldest quarterback to ever win a Super Bowl hinted on more than one occasion about when — if ever — he would hang up his cleats.
“We’ll see how long it goes,” Brady said in November 2019 when asked if he could stay on the field into his late 40s. “Easier said than done. I know the kind of effort I am putting in right now, but what a great privilege to play a sport that I love.”
While fans were happy to hear the athlete’s plans to stick around the NFL a little longer, his then-wife, Gisele Bündchen, wanted a little more clarification on the topic — and Brady understood why.
“I think my wife has, you know, held down the house for a long time now, and I think there’s things that she wants to accomplish,” he said during a September 2021 episode of his “Let’s Go” podcast.
