You know the old phrase, make a choice and stick to it. Well, apparently that doesn’t apply to professional athletes.
Much to the Concret3Cowboy’s chagrin, Tom Brady has come back from retirement after what feels like about a week and a half.
The skeptic in me saw this one coming. It is quite odd for a player to retire right after having one of their best seasons ever. Brady could have been the NFL MVP, and lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions in the playoffs. Now there have been a few times where players go out on top, but that is usually after a championship season. Not after losing in a short playoff run trying to defend a championship. Add that to the fact that Brady himself said on the old Kirk and Callahan show that he would “play until I suck.” I may not be the brightest bulb in the package, but being the MVP runner up isn’t sucking.
It’s only been about a month since Brady “retired” from football. So can we even say he retired? If this was 20 years ago and the post didn’t go up on Instagram, we might have even missed it. But that’s the first thing we’re taught about the internet. Once you post something, it’s out there. There’s no taking it back.
What was funny about the announcement was the fact that he said over and over again that he wanted to spend more time with his family. Then a month after saying that, he goes back to football. Is he that sick of family already? I did chuckle at a few memes this morning before my first PE class about this. I’ll add those here so you can get a laugh as well.
Looking at this from a football perspective, I know why Brady did this. He was trying to leverage his way out of Tampa. He pulled the whole “get rid of me or I ain’t playing,” card. Much to the Bucs credit, they called his bluff and said, “Fine don’t play. See if we care.” Brady saw that they weren’t going to trade him or anything, and the Bucs knew Brady really wanted to play, so Brady came crawling back. It’s just business in the end.
Even knowing the fact that he probably wasn’t going to retire, this comes off a little sad. It gave off a Brett Favre (who my middle school class didn’t know which is horrifying) kind of aura. I always felt like Tom Brady was better than this on and off retirement nonsense. But that was before the whole TB12 garbage. He has kind of moved into that weirdo category nowadays. The retirement talk has been old for a while, and now that he left and then immediately came back, it’s even more obnoxious. I mean, are we going to do this every year now? I guess he joins his buddy Gronk in having retired and came back. But at least Gronk went into wrestling and actually stayed away for a full year.
Like it or not, Brady is the best QB ever to play in the NFL. It is beyond debate at this point. But this kind of foolishness is something that can really tarnish a legacy. I know this has soured my opinion of the guy a bit. To me, this is the beginning of the end for the great Tom Brady. Once you start flip flopping and dragging your teammates along for the ride, then you’ll start to see issues. I know if I were a player on the Bucs and things got a little tough, I’d wonder if Brady is just going to “retire” again. It makes me question whether he even believes what he’s saying anymore.
All of that aside, Brady will do fine this year. The Bucs will do a little worse than they did last year. I think that has more to do with Bruce Arians than Brady. But the stats will drop. He’ll be in the top half of QB stats and the Bucs will get bounced in the Wildcard round. And then what? Does this start again Tom? But, it doesn’t really matter what I have to say. The real person Brady is hearing it from is Gisele.
Come to think of it, that may be the story here. Is there trouble at home? Is that why he’s coming back? I know if I were having trouble at home, that’s the last place I would want to be. You know what, I’ll go out on a limb here, and predict a Brady/Gisele break up in the near future. You heard it here first folks.
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