Tom Brady Retires For Good This Time

Exactly one year after announcing his retirement from football (before rescinding it 40 days later), Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady announced on social media that he was retiring for good this time. Thus ends the 45 year old Brady’s NFL career after 23 seasons, the first 20 with the New England Patriots and the last three with Tampa Bay.

Brady played in 10 Super Bowls, winning six with New England and one with Tampa Bay. He was the MVP in five of those games. He was the NFL MVP three times, and is the career leader in passing yards (89,214) and touchdown passes (649). A college quarterback at Michigan, Brady was New England’s sixth round draft pick in 2000, and played in one game that season. In 2001, he became the starter, and led the Patriots to their first Super Bowl win in Super Bowl XXXVII, a 20-17 victory over the highly favored Rams. He ends his career as the career leader in playoff yards with 13,400, as well as touchdowns (88).

It will be up to Brady to decide if returning for one more season was worth it. The Buccaneers won the abysmal NFC South with an 8-9 record, and then lost to Dallas in the first round of the playoffs. Despite that, he put up some good numbers (25 touchdowns, 4694 yards on a career high 490 completions) in his final season. But his 13 year marriage to supermodel Gisele Bundchen ended in divorce in October, and it was rumored she did not want him to continue to play, contributing to the end of the marriage.

We won’t have to pass the hat for Tom in his retirement. He already had signed a 10 year $375 million contract with Fox Sports, and can begin working as a football analyst immediately. This is in addition to his several business interests.

Here’s a nice highlight reel of Tom Brady’s career, compiled a year ago after his first retirement: