After 22 legendary seasons, 44 year old QB, Tom Brady has officially retired from the NFL. He released a statement on February 1 to his social media thanking all the people who helped him throughout his life and The Buccaneers organization for their support in the later seasons of his career. In the statement Brady writes “football is an all-in proposition-if a 100% competitive commitment isn’t there you won’t succeed…This is difficult for me to write,but here it goes: I am not going to make that competitive commitment anymore.” Brady retires from the NFL as one of, if not the greatest player the game has ever seen. He ends his career being the leader in passing yards with 84,520 yards and most wins in the regular season with 243. He also has the most Super Bowl MVPs with 5 and most Super Bowl appearances with 10. But, one of the most noteworthy accomplishments Brady has is his 7 Super Bowl rings which is more than any other NFL franchise. The next two closest franchises are The Pittsburgh Steelers with 6 and Brady’s own New England Patriots with 6. 

 Brady wasn’t always pictured to have this historic career as he was seen as almost a non-factor going into the 2000 NFL draft. But the Patriots believed in him enough to draft him 199th overall in the 6th round. Most QBs who are picked this late are either career backups or fade out of the league extremely quickly and Brady seemed to be no different as he was not the immediate starter for the Patriots. But all it took was one injury to Patriots starting QB Drew Bledsoe against the Jets in week 2 of the 2001 season for Brady to make his name in the NFL. Brady would take the starting job and Bledsoe never saw it again. Brady would help lead the Patriots to a 11-5 record and even had a 6 game win streak to end the season. The winning didn’t stop in the postseason either as Brady led the Patriots to the Super Bowl and beat the St. Louis Rams 20-17 to secure his first Super Bowl win. This level of success continued in New England as Brady would go on to win 5 more championships with the franchise. But after 20 years with the Patriots Tom Brady left the historic franchise he helped build to go to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This move was surprising considering the legacy he had left in New England but a number of factors including a rumored rift between Brady and head coach Bill Belichick was too much for him to stay.

By the time Brady joined the Buccaneers he was 42 and it seemed that he would start to slow down. But, Brady kept showing that father-time didn’t affect him at all as he went on to have a great season with 4,633 passing yards and 40 TDs. Though this season wasn’t enough to clinch the NFC South they still made it to the Super Bowl by beating the Washington Football Team in the Wild card, the New Orleans Saints in the divisional, and the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship game. All of these games showed how Brady still had it at now 43 years old and showed no signs of slowing down his tremendous play. When the Buccaneers made the Super Bowl though it just didn’t seem likely that a team in their first year together would take down the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs led by star QB Patrick Mahomes. But they did just that, and in blowout fashion as they won 31-9 behind Brady’s 201 passing yds and 3 TDs. This fantastic win added yet another ring and MVP trophy to Brady’s already star studded legacy. 

Though the next year just wasn’t the same for Brady and the Buccaneers as the team would be riddled with injuries and some doses of controversy from WR Antonio Brown. In the postseason the lack of depth at WR with Chris Godwin injured and Antonio Brown being cut showed but they would still make it out of the Wildcard round beating the Philadelphia Eagles 31-15. But the Buccaneers luck ran out as they would lose to the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams 30-27 in the Divisional Round. But Brady wasn’t the main reason for this loss as he did amazing considering his situation as he threw for 329 yds 1 td and only 1 int and almost led the team to a late game comeback win.  

This loss versus the Rams would result in some questions regarding Brady’s future due to him not committing to playing another year in the NFL. And the lack of commitment turned out to be true as Tom Brady officially retired from the NFL and leaves one of the most impressive resumes in all of sports behind him. Brady’s career will be remembered as one of the best we’ve ever seen and future NFL QBs can only hope to even get close to competing with it.