Tom Brady announces retirement from NFL after 23 seasons and seven championships

Tom Brady announced his retirement from the NFL and football at the age of 45. Considered the greatest quarterback in the history of the sport, the player ended his career after 23 seasons, with 10 Super Bowl disputes and seven titles won, in addition to multiple records. The athlete himself went to his social networks to announce his retirement.

Drafted by the New England Patriots in the sixth round of the 2000 draft with the 199th overall pick, he broke numerous records. He was the oldest quarterback to play a game in the league, the player with the most championships and titles of any other franchise in the NFL, in addition to winning the MVP award in the regular season on three occasions and the Super Bowl in another five.

Before the start of the 2022/2023 NFL season, Brady even announced that he would end his career in January 2022. Almost two months later, the player reversed his decision, returning for another year with the Tampa Bay Buccanneers franchise for which he won a Super Bowl, in 2021. At the time, confirmation of his retirement was first given by the North American press and then confirmed by the NFL pages on social networks and by the player himself, through an open letter .

“I’ll get straight to the point: I’m retiring, definitively,” said Brady, in a video posted on his social networks. “This whole process got a lot of buzz last time (when I retired), so I thought I’d let you know first and I already wrote my farewell letter last season.” In his emotional speech, Brady thanked his teammates, coaches and rivals who have propelled his career forward over the past 23 years.

Tom Brady’s official retirement comes after three seasons in Tampa Bay, the last team of his career. For the next 20 years, he defended the Patriots’ quarterback position alongside head coach Bill Belichick and such greats as tight end Rob Gronkowski and wide receivers Randy Moss and Julian Edelman. With New England, he played in nine Super Bowls, with six wins.

In his last season in Tampa Bay, he had to deal with several problems, both in his personal and professional life. After a long relationship, Brady and Gisele Bündchen announced their separation after 13 years of marriage and two children. In football, he lost the company of Gronkowski and coach Bruce Arians, with whom he won Super Bowl LV against the Kansas City Chiefs, and who opted out of retirement before the start of last season.

In 2022, Brady lived one of his worst seasons in numbers. In addition to being eliminated by the Dallas Cowboys in the first round of the playoffs, he passed for 4,694 yards and 25 “touchdowns”. He also had nine interceptions in the period, better numbers than the 2001 season, his first as an NFL starter and which won the Super Bowl.

CAREER AT COLLEGE AND NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

Brady started his football life at Michigan State University, one of the most famous programs in college sports. Born in California, Brady was born in the city of San Mateo, in 1977, and was an assumed supporter of the San Francisco 49ers in his childhood. After an unexciting “Combine” – a program that brings together all the season’s draft prospects -, the quarterback was only selected with the 199th overall pick in 2000.

After a first year in New England as a backup, Brady became a starter in 2001 after franchise veteran Drew Bledsoe suffered a concussion in his second game of the season against the New York Jets. Since then, Brady has started his winning streak in the NFL, reaching the Super Bowl in his second year in the league.

Against St. Louis Rams – current Los Angeles Rams – Brady led a campaign, in the last quarter, with 1:30 left on the clock, to win the game in the “field goal” of Adam Vinatieri. This was the first demonstration, at the national level, of the quarterback’s intelligence in the final minutes of the game, even more so in a postseason.