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Tom Brady Finally Lets Go. Maybe

 ESPN, the NFL Network and other outlets have reported Tom Brady is retiring from pro football. Ordinarily I would accept their reporting without question, and in truth, I do. But I can't help thinking, what? Yellowstone still suits up. The Jefferson Memorial is reporting to camp on schedule. Monuments can't retire.

Human beings do though, and Brady is only half monument. It is very difficult to imagine a future Bradyless NFL because the Bradyless NFL of the past is getting increasingly misty, timewise.

The NFL pretends it began in 1919. If that's the standard, then Brady's 22 year career only spans 21 percent of the league's lifespan. In reality, the NFL as we know it, a standardized going concern rather than a gypsy semi-pro league, began in 1933. By that standard, Brady's career represents a full quarter of the NFL's history. Start with the Super Bowl era, and it's 40 percent. In a sport where the average career isn't even four seasons long, that's a geologic, no, astronomical time span.

A lengthy review of why that career makes Brady the all-time best quarterback (you can't rank players outside their positions, the difference between each job is too vast) is unnecessary and can be read in every other media outlet on earth if you want to. Here's my simple formula. Cut Brady's career in half. Examine his performance from 2000-2010 and 2011-2021. The man wasn't a Hall of Fame QB. He was two of them.

As for the why nows of Brady's retirement, if he goes through with it, I'm sure that when and if the announcement comes he'll give a lengthy and plausible answer that conceals more than it reveals. The young Brady of 2001-2004 that I covered was candid and an extremely poor dissembler when he didn't wish to be candid. The 20-year vet is far smoother and has far less he wishes to reveal. Growing older changes people. Growing older at the top rings even more changes.

I'll hazard a guess, though. Just as I think restlessness was the root cause of Brady's leaving the Patriots, I believe a different kind of restlessness will be/is the root of his decision to leave pro football. Once a player can actually experience a sense of deja vu from winning the Super Bowl, think of the ennui the prospect of another year of the NFL grind creates in him. There's no significant change in Brady's life that can take place in the context of another season, even one of excellence, as 2021 was for him. There's no way left the sport can be different for him except the unthinkable -- he could stop being so good at it.

Most players leave the NFL involuntarily. The lucky few that pick their spot to get out do so because they feel they have no more left to give their demanding, dangerous, addicting profession.

I am still unwilling to 100 percent abandon the conditional tenses in this port until I hear the news from Tom himself, not on Instagram, either. But when/if he goes, it's for a singular reason, as singular as his career.

Tom Brady's leaving pro football because the sport has nothing left to give him.

posted by Michael Gee @ 3:42 PM