One of the greatest team sports athletes of all-time, Tom Brady is calling it a career.
Update 2/1: Brady has officially announced his retirement.
Previous update 1/29: Despite Brady’s own company TB12sports seeming to confirm ESPN’s report of his retirement with a congratulatory tweet Saturday, The Athletic and Associated Press have reported that he has not come to a final decision as of yet. NFL Network reported that Brady does “intend” to retire but is pushing back on the timing of ESPN’s report.
Original post below:
As first reported Saturday by ESPN, Brady is retiring after a 22-year career in which he won seven Super Bowl titles with two different teams. His decision comes less than a week after the Buccaneers lost in the NFC Divisional round against Los Angeles in a game that saw Brady and company erase a 27-3 deficit to the game in the final seconds. It was an appropriate last hurrah for Brady, whose greatest career accomplishment was leading a successful comeback from 28-3 down in Super Bowl 51.
Brady’s retirement is a watershed moment for the NFL. While the league is substantially stronger than the NBA was after Michael Jordan’s various retirements (in 1993, 1999 and 2003), it is to at least some extent reliant on Brady as one of its key draws — along with the Cowboys, Packers and Patrick Mahomes.
NFL ratings took a noticeable hit after the retirement of Peyton Manning in 2016, and Brady’s absence figures to leave a void for the league’s TV partners next season. Eleven of the Buccaneers’ 17 regular season games this season aired in at least half of television markets, including nine that went to at least 80% of the country. Keep in mind Tampa Bay was rarely in the major national games before Brady’s arrival two years ago.
The Buccaneers were one of five teams to play at least 11 games that were televised in a majority of markets, joining the Packers (16), Cowboys (15) and Chiefs (14) and Steelers (11). Tampa Bay figures to get far fewer national games next season.
Brady’s 22-year career spanned completely different eras of the NFL on television. His first Super Bowl win was called by Pat Summerall and John Madden for FOX in 2002, neither of whom are still with us. His final Super Bowl win last year was called by Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, the latter of whom was still playing college ball at Eastern Illinois when Brady won his first.
Overall, Brady played in 10 Super Bowl games called by ten different play-by-play or color commentators: Summerall and Madden on FOX in 2002, Greg Gumbel and Phil Simms on CBS in 2004, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in 2005, 2008 and 2017, Cris Collinsworth in 2005, 2012, 2015 and 2018, Al Michaels in 2012, 2015 and 2018 and finally Nantz and Romo in 2019 and 2021.
Brady will surely be in high demand by television networks should he show even the slightest interest in broadcasting. The networks pursued Peyton Manning for years until he finally agreed to work ESPN’s Monday Night Football “Manningcasts” on ESPN2.
[News from ESPN]
