Last month Tom Brady, in a somewhat expected but nonetheless remarkable move, announced that he would be taking his talents to Tampa Bay. The six-time Super Bowl champion, three-time MVP and one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history struggled last season with New England, throwing for 4,057 yards, 24 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Eliminated in the Wild Card round by the Tennessee Titans, the Patriots failed to make it to the AFC Championship Game for the first time since 2011 and broke their three-year Super Bowl appearance streak.
On Monday the 42-year-old penned an essay for “The Players Tribune” about his future, thanking New England for his 20 years with the organization and labeling his move to Tampa Bay “a great challenge.” As is now well known, twenty years ago, Brady was a scrawny kid from the University of Michigan and wasn’t given much of a look at the 2000 NFL Combine. The Patriots drafted him in the sixth round and from there, the rest is history. “I wouldn’t change anything about it,” the former cornerstone of the New England franchise wrote.
Following the 2019-20 season, it seemed that the 14-time Pro Bowler wanted a long-term commitment from the Patriots — something the team was not willing to provide him. Brady now finds himself with many doubters — he will turn 43 in August and currently holds the title of oldest quarterback in the league. But Brady seems to know that his football career won’t last forever, and that knowledge only serves to fuel his motivation going forward.
“Now I want to see what more I can do,” the quarterback wrote. “I want to see how great I can be. I want to hear other people say, ‘Go, man. Now that’s what we’ve been missing. That’s what we need! That’s what we’ve been looking for!'”
Brady also wrote about how excited he is to “embrace fully a team that is confident in what I do — and what I bring — and is willing to go on this ride with me.” As a player with 20 years of experience playing for one of the most successful franchises in NFL history, Brady also hopes to bring his veteran leadership and expertise to the Buccaneers locker room.
But most of all, Brady believes he still has a chip on his shoulder, and that he still has something to prove.
“If I don’t go for it, I’ll never know what I could have accomplished,” the star player wrote. “Wanting to do something is different from actually doing it. If I stood at the bottom of a mountain, and told myself I could scale the highest peak, but then didn’t do anything about it, what’s the point of that?”
