Soon-to-be 45-year-old Tom Brady knows he doesn’t have a few years left in the NFL.
During a wide-ranging interview in May with Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh, Brady said he had no set plan for when he might retire, but noted that he was “very close to the end.”
“I really don’t (know when I’m done playing),” Brady said in the interview, which was released Thursday. “I would say it’s year by year: Could this be my last year? Absolutely. Can I change my mind? Absolutely. I realized I didn’t have five years left. I want to do it my way. give it all i got and look where i am My body feels really good. I’ve had a lot of traumatic injuries over the years, but if things go really smoothly and we win, that would be great.”
Brady famously “retired” in February, which lasted 40 days before the fierce competitor returned to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“I made the decision in the moment and thought it was the right thing for the team to let the Bucs know,” Brady told Setude. “You need time to plan. And then through conversations with Bruce [Arians, the team’s former coach]Jason [Licht, general manager] and my wife, I felt I could still play and compete.
“And it’s not that I’m any less committed when I say yes, but I have a 14-year-old son who lives in New York – he wants time. My wife, she has been incredibly supportive of my career for a long period of time. So I had to talk to her, you know what I mean? These decisions are made together with me as a family. And I have two younger children, one 12 and one 9 — all of whom have challenging lives.”
Brady acknowledged that the 40-day retirement creates a unique situation.
“I know I know. I would have preferred to retire in July if I wanted to play,” he said. “But I couldn’t. If I said I wasn’t going to play, they would make plans. So I felt there was a lot of pressure to make a decision quickly. And then eventually I just decided, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ And after I said that, it was like — OK, here we go.”
Brady, who has been involved in multiple businesses off the field, including a fitness company, clothing line, production company, NFT platform and other ventures, has agreed to join FOX Sports on a long, lucrative contract after he eventually retires.
Asked if we might not see TB12 with FOX for another two or three years, the QB left that open.
“Obviously there’s a chance. But I’m very close to the end,” he said.
Brady said if the Bucs miss the playoffs this season, he has no plans to be on FOX in January as a test.
“No. I want to focus on football,” he said. “I really want to commit this year to being the best I can be.”
And when he does eventually retire, Brady won’t completely abandon everything that made him THE GOAT
“It’s not even about the diet,” Brady said when Setudeh mentioned that most people think of him as a strict eater. “You have to see the process of growing the food. Just because it’s in a grocery store doesn’t mean it’s food. My view on food is that I need things that will give my body what it needs. Does it make sense? I don’t want calories. If I need nutrients, I need it from the soil. It won’t be from Frosted Flakes. Now, because they sell it in a grocery store, people associate it with “I” going to get food. In my opinion, this food would never allow me to play football until I was 44 years old.”
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