Tom Brady is at the tail end of of his professional football career. That would be true of anyone who is about to play the sport as a 41 year old, but Brady is the best quarterback of all-time and was so good that he was named the league MVP this past season.
Much has been made about the future of the Patriots at quarterback, especially because the team traded Jimmy Garappolo last season. Brady can’t play forever, and there was even talk that he might retire after the team lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in the most recent Super Bowl. It was reported even as recently as April that Brady hadn’t committed to playing in the fall, though he later cleared that up and is expected to start for the Patriots this season.
Still, the clock is ticking, and even Brady himself — famously waging a battle against time — knows the end is closer than he’d perhaps like to admit. In a new interview with Oprah, he actually admitted that he’s weighed retirement, and even though he’s previously said he might play until he’s 50, Brady pushed that timetable up considerably.
Boston Herald‘s Karen Guregian got a hold of excerpts from an interview Brady did with the mogul, and while Brady said he’ll play “as long as I’m still loving it,” he admitted that he thinks about what the future holds.
“I think about [retiring] more now than I used to,” Brady said. “I think I’m seeing there’s definitely an end coming sooner, rather than later.”
That certainly doesn’t pinpoint a final season for Brady, but it is a significant shift in that he’s admitting football mortality. That’s something Brady has been reticent about in the past, at least publicly. There’s no question Brady’s legacy as one of the game’s best ever has been settled at this point. But when he’s officially done and what happens to the Patriots when he hangs up the nanobubbles is still tough to tell right now.
