TAMPA.Fla. — The last image of Tom Brady playing in the NFL will be of his team relying on his right arm to rally from a 24-point deficit and tie its NFC division playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams with less than a minute to play.
Brady did everything he could, but the Bucs eventually collapsed on defense and lost, 30-27, on Matt Gay’s 30-yard field goal as time expired.
The clock also has finally drained on the remarkable career of the NFL’s greatest quarterback, just when football fans — especially in Tampa Bay — were clasping their hands in prayer for another Brady comeback, if only for one more season.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington reported Saturday afternoon that Brady is retiring, and TB12 Sports posted a tweet listing Brady’s career accomplishments and thanking him for it all before later deleting it.
However, the Bucs and coach Bruce Arians had not received any word about those plans from Brady or his agent. “No he hasn’t (retired) that we know of,” Arians told the Tampa Bay Times just minutes after media reports. “Agent (Donald Yee) just told us he hasn’t made up his mind.”
Yee said Brady should comment on his future soon.
“I understand the advance speculation about Tom’s future,” Yee said in a statement. “Without getting into the accuracy or inaccuracy of what’s being reported, Tom will be the only person to express his plans with complete accuracy. He knows the realities of the football business and planning calendar as well as anybody, so that should be soon.”
However the message came out, Brady goes out on his own terms and on top.
While the final season of his illustrious career didn’t end with confetti in his hair, he led the NFL in passing yards (5,316) and touchdowns (43) during the regular season, making the case that even at 44 years old, he was the best to do it at his position.
Those closest to Brady say that while he knows he can absolutely still play at a championship level, the desire to spend more time with his wife and three children is what ultimately convinced him to end an unparalleled career after 21 seasons.
“Tom loves football, he loves everything about it and he pours all he has into being the best quarterback and leader for his coaches and teammates,” quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen told the Tampa Bay Times. “But he also wants to be a Hall of Fame dad and a Hall of Fame husband. That’s just as important and probably more so than being a Hall of Fame quarterback.”
In two seasons with the Bucs that seemed to streak past like a meteor across the sky, Brady won 29 games as well as division, conference and the Super Bowl 55 titles.
He walks away in tremendous physical condition thanks to his TB12 fitness regimen as the greatest NFL player of all time with seven Super Bowl rings and 10 appearances in the league’s championship game.
For the Bucs, it’s the end of a two-year fantasy.
Brady’s retirement didn’t catch the Bucs completely off guard. Even though he was under contract for another year and had talked about playing until he was 45, they knew it was a possibility he could walk away at any time.
But it does leave the Bucs in the market for another quarterback. The only one under contract with the Bucs is Kyle Trask, the Florida Gators star who was inactive every game during his rookie season. Backup Blaine Gabbert is a free agent but would be an option.
However, on Monday coach Bruce Arians talked about wanting to see which quarterback was behind “Door No. 2.”
Having gone 12 straight seasons without sniffing the playoffs and not having won a postseason game since beating the Raiders in Super Bowl 37, the Bucs were able to convince Brady to leave New England as a free agent for one of the league’s most forlorn franchises.
John Spytek, the Bucs’ vice president of player personnel, nicknamed the top-secret pursuit of Brady “Operation Shoeless Joe Jackson” from Field of Dreams, the movie about the Black Sox scandal.
“If we build it, he will come,” Spytek explained.
The Bucs had built a solid nucleus of young talent, especially on offense with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and an ascending offensive line.
Once Brady signed a two-year, $50 million contract in March 2020 as a free agent, the Bucs added to that arsenal of weapons.
Brady convinced the Bucs to trade for the rights to Rob Gronkowski, then talked the game’s best tight end out of retirement.
He lobbied for the Bucs to sign running back Leonard Fournette, who had been cut adrift by Jacksonville.
Halfway through the 2020 season, he convinced the Bucs to sign Antonio Brown following an eight-game suspension by the NFL for assaulting a moving van driver.
What Brady accomplished in two seasons in Tampa Bay is nothing short of miraculous.
He arrived in Tampa during a world-wide pandemic, and COVID-19 restrictions prevented players and coaches from gathering at the team facilities that were under lockdown.
So Brady tried to organize workouts. He was kicked out of a Tampa park that was closed for COVID-19 protocols and walked into the wrong house looking for offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, who lived next door.
After those missteps, Brady and his new Bucs teammates settled on early morning workouts during the spring and summer at Berkeley Preparatory School.
With no formal offseason program and only an abbreviated training camp, the Bucs stumbled to a 7-5 start.
Brady tried to adapt to head coach Bruce Arians’ vertical offense, but during the bye week of that first season — after back-to-back losses to the Rams and Chiefs — they made some subtle changes. Offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich incorporated more pre-snap motions, play-action passes and made a bigger commitment to running the football.
The defense also improved and the Bucs went on a tear, winning eight straight games, including three playoff games in a row on the road. Brady beat the Saints’ Drew Brees, the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers and the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes in succession.
Brady’s additions all paid off in the 31-9 win over the Chiefs in Super Bowl 55. Gronkowski caught two touchdown passes, Brown had one touchdown catch and Fournette had a rushing score.
In Tampa Bay, Brady found his voice, speaking out on issues affecting NFL players and sharing a more personal side.
During the Bucs’ celebratory boat parade, drunk on too much avocado tequila, Brady tossed the Lombardi Trophy across the Hillsborough River to tight end Cameron Brate on another boat.
The Bucs were beset with injuries on both sides of the football in Year 2, but Brady was at his best, winning games with walk-off touchdown passes to Breshad Perriman (in overtime vs. Bills) and Cyril Grayson (at Jets).
But Brown was released by Arians for refusing to re-enter the game against the Jets, and injuries to the offensive line caused Brady to be hit 17 times by the Rams in the playoff loss.
“It pains (my wife) to see me get hit out there,” Brady said on his most recent Let’s Go! Podcast. “And she deserves what she needs from me as a husband and my kids deserve what they need from me as a dad. ... But not playing football, there’s a lot of joy in that for me also now, too, with my kids getting older and seeing them develop and grow.”
