NEW YORK – Tom Brady, one of the world’s most decorated professional athletes and widely viewed as the greatest player in National Football League history, announced on Wednesday that he would retire. For good this time.
“I’ll get to the point right away,” Brady, who just completed his 23rd season, said in a short video posted on social media. “I’m retiring. For good.”
Brady, 45, exits the league as the winner of seven Super Bowls, an NFL record, as well as atop the list for almost every major passing statistical category. He was the oldest active player in the NFL this season, but still played at an elite level till the end.
Brady retired after his third season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, reversing his decision and returning to play after announcing he would retire in February 2022. This season was his worst a professional – the team finished with an 8-9 record and lost in the wild-card round of the play-offs to the Dallas Cowboys. But Brady threw for 4,694 passing yards, the third most in the league, while completing 66.8 per cent of his passes.
The season occurred in the backdrop of a tense period in his personal life. Brady and supermodel Gisele Bundchen, his wife of more than 13 years, announced in October that they filed for divorce.
Brady joined the Buccaneers in 2020, leading the team to a Super Bowl victory in his first year in Tampa Bay. To do so, he left the franchise for which he had played his entire career to that point. He spent two decades with the New England Patriots, where he won six world championships.
The Patriots drafted him in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft, and he won the starting job midway through his second year after replacing the injured Drew Bledsoe.
Brady had been linked to coach Bill Belichick throughout his career in New England as the two shaped one of the league’s marquee dynasties. Along with winning six Super Bowls, tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most among the NFL’ s franchises, the Patriots appeared in nine Super Bowls and 13 AFC championship games. NYTIMES
