Former Patriots’ great Tom Brady has retired for good

Former Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady announced his retirement from the NFL on Wednesday morning after 23 sensational years.  Well, it’s apparently officially official this time, as former Patriot great Tom Brady has decided to step away from the game after 23 years.

The veteran wanted to play until he was 45 years old, and he did just that.  He spent the first 20 seasons of his career with the New England Patriots, where he won six Super Bowl titles in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2014, 2016, and 2018.

After the 2019 season, Brady bolted New England for Tampa Bay, where he spent three years as a Buccaneer.  In his first season in Tampa, he led the Bucs to a Super Bowl title, making that his seventh overall.

They made it to the playoffs in 2021 and 2022 but were not able to make it past the divisional round, and even finished with a losing record in the regular season this past year.  Honestly, I did not think Brady was going to go out like this.

He’s the ultimate competitor, and enduring the first losing season of his career and losing in the first round of the playoffs just did not seem likely he’d want to end it there.  However, it seems like he knew this would be his last year.

Now, after 23 years of greatness, Brady moves on and the NFL will begin to look a lot different.  On the football side of things, this also severely weakens the NFC and makes it even more wide open than it already was.

With Aaron Rodgers’ future in the air, his time with Green Bay could be up, which makes the NFC North wide open.

The NFC South was going to be wide open even if Brady were to return, and the NFC East and West, outside of the Eagles and 49ers, don’t seem to be that spectacular.

The story is totally different in the AFC, as young quarterbacks are making a ton of noise, but I’m not sure Mac Jones fits into that.

Either way, congratulations on a great career, TB12!