Tom Brady Won’t Retire From NFL Without A Mighty Stiff Arm

Yeah, well. Of course, Tom Brady said Sunday out of nowhere that he’s coming back next season to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

He never left.

No doubt, Brady has the skills to make a few nickels away from avoiding linebackers for a living to complete passes. It’s just that he won’t find many other non-NFL activities to make him rank the equivalent of ninth on the Forbes’ 2021 World’s Highest-Paid Athletes Earnings list at $76 million.

Then there’s Brady’s company called “199 Productions.” That number represents where he was selected overall in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft by the New England Patriots.

Brady’s company develops documentaries, films and TV shows, and you’ve guessed it: Overseeing such things doesn’t provide the same rush for Brady as trying to add to his record seven Super Bowl rings by ignoring that Forbes ranks his Buccaneers only 21st on the NFL Team Valuations List at $2.94 billion.

He’ll spend the 2022 season trying to push the Buccaneers to a second world championship in three years.

“These past two months I’ve realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands,” Brady tweeted Sunday night. “That time will come. But it’s not now. I love my teammates, and I love my supportive family. They make it all possible. I’m coming back for my 23rd season in Tampa.”

To paraphrase Maya Angelou: When the greatest NFL quarterback of all-time tells you he wants to play until he’s 50, believe him the first time.

Only the foolish took Brady seriously when he announced on February 1 that he might sort of stay retired for good despite finishing his 22nd NFL season leading the league in passing yardage (5,316) and touchdown passes (43) while taking his Buccaneers just shy of reaching the NFC Championship Game after he set the NFL record for most completed passes (485) during the regular season.

Brady turned only 44 last August. Which means you should go by what he said the following month during a YouTube interview when he was asked by Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski if he still could make a living wearing a helmet and shoulder pads for another six years or so.

“I don’t find it so difficult,” Brady told Gronkowski back then. “Plus in Florida, it’s kind of a retiree state, so I feel like I can play and then just glide into retirement. I think I can. I think it’s a yes.”

So . . .

Why did Brady say he was retiring?

It happens.

Ask Brett Favre, the Green Bay Packers legendary quarterback who kind of retired and then un-retired two or three times along the way to embarrassing himself with the New York Jets and then the Minnesota Vikings.

Jim Brown was a fluke.

The same goes for Barry Sanders, another Pro Football Hall of Fame running back who joined Brown in doing what Brady couldn’t do: Walk away from the NFL (which Brown and Sanders did after the 1965 and 1998 seasons respectively) despite the potential of sprinting deeper into glory for several more years to come.

Calvin Johnson, you say?

Uh uh, and I know: Johnson remained among the NFL’s most lethal wide receivers with sixth consecutive Pro Bowl trips out of nine seasons overall for the Detroit Lions when he announced his retirement in the spring of 2016 at 30.

Unlike Brown and Sanders, Johnson’s aches and pains were screaming for him to bolt the NFL. He said he was in so much pain from knee, ankle and finger issues that he purposely violated league rules by smoking marijuana after nearly every game he played from 2007 until he left the field for good.

If you name everybody among the NFL’s elite of elites during its 102-year history, you’ll find few others besides Brown and Sanders who left the game without a significant shove from injuries, ailments or Father Time.

Which brings me to another reason Brady isn’t going anywhere for a while, even though he suggested otherwise after the 2021 season.

Look at Brady and then listen closely.

Father Time is silent.