Tom Brady’s football career traced an arc that bordered on mythical, his ascent from sixth-round N.F.L. draft pick to seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback and global celebrity. And it has ended, after more than two decades of unparalleled brilliance in his sport, in a pique of contradiction.
Brady, who once said that he would retire only when his performance began to decline, has decided to leave the N.F.L. still, at age 44, at the apex of his powers. He announced his retirement on Instagram on Tuesday, after leading the league, in his 22nd season, in passing yards (5,316), completions (485) and touchdowns (43) for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who lost in the divisional round of the N.F.C. playoffs to the Los Angeles Rams.
“I have always believed the sport of football is an ‘all-in’ proposition — if a 100% competitive commitment isn’t there, you won’t succeed, and success is what I love so much about our game,” Brady said in his Instagram post.
He added: “This is difficult for me to write, but here it goes: I am not going to make that competitive commitment anymore. I have loved my NFL career, and now it is time to focus my time and energy on other things that require my attention.”
Brady’s official declaration came days after ESPN on Jan. 29 reported his departure, initiating a frenzy that was initially debunked by his father, Tom Brady Sr., and his agent, Don Yee, who in a statement said Brady alone would announce the details of his future plans. Brady himself softened the idea of an imminent decision on Monday night, saying on his “Let’s Go!” podcast with Jim Gray that he was still going through the process of making a decision. “When the time’s right, I’ll be ready to make a decision, one way or another,” he said.
Brady had for years stated that he wanted to play until he was 45 years old, a benchmark for him. He spoke about spending more time with his wife, the supermodel Gisele Bündchen, and three children, and said he would make a decision with their input.
The hours that elapsed before Brady confirmed the decision on his terms reinforced the maniacal control that has governed his professional life and career. The same quarterback who castigated himself for throwing passes an inch away from his receivers — who adhered to a rigid diet and championed the virtues of muscle pliability — once trespassed a city park in Tampa, Fla., because he needed to work out and the park was closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
His perfectionist streak, coupled with a smoldering intensity and a microprocessor of a brain, enabled a player chosen by the New England Patriots with the 199th overall pick in 2000 — the seventh quarterback selected that year — to retire with three league Most Valuable Player Awards and as the N.F.L.’s career leader in touchdown passes, passing yardage and victories.
Brady piled onto those marks last season, when he threw for the most yards of his career. Instead of hobbling around on battered knees, with a wrinkled visage and cranky shoulder, Brady danced around the pocket and rushed for his most yards in a decade, shattering the stereotype of an older quarterback and redefining what feels possible for aging athletes.
Only six quarterbacks before Brady, according to Sports Reference’s Stathead database, had even attempted one pass after turning 42. Combined, those quarterbacks — George Blanda, Steve DeBerg, Doug Flutie, Warren Moon, Earl Morrall and Vinny Testaverde — threw for 37 touchdown passes at 42 or older. Brady, in his first season with the Buccaneers, in 2020, threw 40.
So many other details of his career seem fanciful enough to sound apocryphal.
In 20 full seasons as a starter, Brady led his team to the Super Bowl 10 times. He started as many Super Bowls (three) in his 40s as he did in his 20s, when he crammed three triumphs into four seasons. His seven Super Bowl titles are more than any franchise has won. He was selected as the Super Bowl M.V.P. five times; only one other quarterback, John Elway of Denver, even started five Super Bowls. Only once has Brady missed the playoffs as a starter — in 2002, the season after winning his first Super Bowl, the championship that launched the Patriots’ dynasty.
Brady’s stardom in New England incubated for years in ideal circumstances after springing from a fluke event on Sept. 23, 2001. Jets linebacker Mo Lewis knocked out Drew Bledsoe, who sheared a blood vessel in his chest, thrusting Brady into the game.
Brady formed, with Bill Belichick, the greatest quarterback-coach partnership in N.F.L. history, capitalizing on the organization’s stable infrastructure, the league’s short-passing boom and his own durability — the only games he missed because of injury came in 2008, after tearing a knee ligament in the season opener. He reveled in New England’s “Do Your Job” ethos, stifling his charismatic personality to emerge as a pocket passer extraordinaire, winning six championships and 17 division titles with the Patriots.
But even his playoff defeats were memorable. He was twice foiled in the Super Bowl by the Giants. The first time, in February 2008, thwarted New England’s bid for an unbeaten season. The second, in February 2012, prompted Bündchen, incensed by several dropped passes, to scoff afterward that her husband couldn’t throw and catch at the same time. Then, against Philadelphia six years later, Brady torched the Eagles for 505 passing yards — one of his many postseason records — but lost, 41-33, after being stripped of the ball with about two minutes remaining.
Perhaps his crowning achievement, though, came at the end of the 2016 season, when he completed his nationwide tour of vengeance by overcoming a 25-point third-quarter deficit to stun the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl. He had started that season with a four-game suspension for his role in a cheating scandal known as Deflategate, a spat about underinflated footballs meant to give him an advantage throwing the ball that devolved into circular arguments — played out in federal court, no less — about N.F.L. power dynamics and the philosophical underpinnings of the Patriots’ dynasty.
That championship, like so many other moments, reaffirmed Brady’s enduring belief in himself. Every team, including New England, bypassed him multiple times during the 2000 draft, and Brady was so distraught that no one had taken him in earlier rounds that he left his California home, to take a walk.
A few weeks after the Patriots selected him, the team’s owner, Robert K. Kraft, encountered Brady not far from his office. Brady introduced himself to Kraft, who said he knew that he was their sixth-round pick from the University of Michigan.
“That’s right,” Brady replied, in Kraft’s retelling. “And I’m the best decision this organization has ever made.”
And he was, becoming perhaps the most beloved athlete in Boston sports history. But in August 2019, on the eve of his 20th year in New England and two days after turning 42, Brady agreed to a new contract that would make him a free agent after the season. His final pass as a Patriot, in a home wild-card round defeat to the Tennessee Titans, was intercepted and returned for a touchdown.
Two months later, with the Patriots unwilling to sign Brady to a long-term contract, he fled New England for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a move that upended the N.F.L. landscape. At the time, the Buccaneers had won as many playoff games (six) as Brady had championships, but he mastered a new offense, adjusted to new teammates and coaches and dominated the league, all while the pandemic restricted in-person contact. He won his seventh title, throwing three touchdown passes in a demolition of Kansas City, last February in the Buccaneers’ home stadium.
Each of Brady’s rings proved something, in their own way. That he deserved to start over Bledsoe. That his first title wasn’t by chance. That he could spearhead a dynasty. That he didn’t need deflated balls to win. That he could rebuff the commissioner, Roger Goodell, who meted out his Deflategate suspension. That the Patriots, by trading the backup Jimmy Garoppolo, had made the right decision to retain him. And finally, last year, that he didn’t need Belichick to win.
Even in capturing his last two championships, when he had to outlast Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City in matchups distilled into base terms as the best of all time against the best of this time, Brady asserted his primacy and fended off the creeping generational shift at quarterback.
In recent years, Brady has been preparing for the next phase of his life, founding the health and wellness company TB12 Sports with his longtime trainer Alex Guerrero and the media company Religion of Sports and the Brady Brand clothing line. In the sort of thing one does when sensing the end approaching, he also chronicled his legacy in two television series, “Tom vs. Time” and “Man in the Arena.”
But he kept delaying retirement for so long because he loved football and he loved winning and he was excellent for more than two decades — the best, in fact — at doing both. That he finished his career with a playoff defeat, in the divisional round against the Los Angeles Rams, seems incompatible with all the glory that preceded it.
Look again, though, at the piercing final play from that game: A 30-yard Rams field goal, the ball snapped from the Tampa Bay 12-yard line. A farewell to TB12, from the T.B. 12.
