Was a second unretirement from Tom Brady secretly in the works this offseason? The seven-time Super Bowl champion revealed on Sunday that he was actually planning to return to the game, but of all things, a party ended up changing things.
In an Instagram caption recapping his year, Brady ended with, “The only downside to 2023 was when I was about to unretire in May and my friends threw a surprise retirement party. Kind of forced my hand,” with a laughing emoji.
The comments were flooded with fans asking him to come back, along with some happy he’s done for good.
There are a lot of factors players have to consider when deciding whether they want to retire, or in this case, stay retired. Apparently for Brady, the retirement party was the final piece of the puzzle that made him commit to hanging up the cleats, or at least that’s what he wants us to believe.
Whether he is messing with us or not, we may never know. It is certainly likely Brady just wanted to raise a few eyebrows and get people talking. If Brady, 46, really wanted to be playing football, we would probably be watching Brady play football.
He has joked during this season that his family would not be happy with him if he decided to unretire again. “My parents would call, my kids would call. They’d kill me,” Brady said. “I wouldn’t be around by tonight. As I said, you’re only allowed one un-retirement. And I’ve used it up.”
It is fun to speculate that there is alternative universe where Brady is playing in his 24th season and going after that eighth ring. When he first retired for the second time, it did seem possible that a return could still happen.
There were questions on whether he was really done with the game and he never did seem to fully shut that door during the offseason. Of course, the season began without Brady, marking the end of a storied era.
As the season progressed, there were rumors the New York Jets would want him, after Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered a season-ending Achilles injury. Brady did not emphatically shut down the question when asked if he would give it a shot, but the former New England Patriots QB never ended up going to his old rival.
The most likely situation is that after already pulling an unretirement once, Brady wanted to be sure of his decision before he pulled the trigger a second time and the caption is his way of joking with fans and media…
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