Tom Brady announced his retirement from the NFL in early February after playing 22 seasons with the Patriots and Buccaneers. However, not everyone is convinced his career has come to an end.

Rumors of a potential Brady return have swirled in the two weeks since his retirement announcement. He did little to quiet speculation when he refused to rule out a potential return to the NFL in an appearance on his “Let’s Go!” podcast with Jim Gray.

“I’m just gonna take things as they come,” Brady said. “I think that’s the best way to put it and I don’t think anything, you know, you never say never. At the same time I know that I’m very, I feel very good about my decision. I don’t know how I’ll feel six months from now.”

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Brady said in that interview that he’s not looking to “reverse course,” but he certainly didn’t slam the door shut on a potential return to the league.

The buzz around Brady bubbled up again on Super Bowl Sunday. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that the Buccaneers were “leaving the door open for Tom Brady” and that Brady “isn’t completely ruling out” a return to the field.

NFL Network’s Mike Giardi backed up that report. He spoke to a few of Brady’s former Patriots teammates, and they don’t believe that his career has come to an end yet.

“I’ve talked to a couple of people who were with Brady in Foxboro, know him very well, and they said, ‘I don’t believe for a second that he’s done,'” Giardi said Tuesday on NFL Network.


Furthermore, Giardi believes that the way that Brady’s retirement announcement was handled could have forced his hand a bit as he weighed his future.

“I think the way things got handled a couple Saturdays ago with the retirement — sort of leaked out early, he shamed the media then the next day, he retires. It was very clunkily done,” Giardi said. “A lot of people feel like he was almost forced in that direction and doesn’t wanna go in that direction just yet.”

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Another factor in Brady’s decision may be the Bucs’ salary cap situation. They went all-in to retain their title-winning team for 2021 and came up short of a Super Bowl repeat. Now they have to operate with minimal cap space as they look to retain key free agents like Chris Godwin, Carlton Davis and Ryan Jensen.

“The situation in Tampa — they ran it back last year, they didn’t win a title,” Giardi said. “Now, there’s some cap concerns. Can they bring everybody back? It doesn’t seem that’s gonna be the case. Maybe, just maybe, Tom Brady is looking elsewhere and saying, ‘I can’t win a title here, but maybe I can win one elsewhere.’ … He did not close the door on playing football.”

Giardi also reported that Brady would consider relocating if he were to return. That would open up numerous opportunities for him should he unretire, though the Buccaneers would likely have to facilitate a trade to make that happen.

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A couple of Brady’s former teammates have also spoken on the record about him potentially returning. Rob Gronkowski, Brady’s long-time teammate and friend, said before the Super Bowl that he could still see Brady playing at age 50.

“I think he’s going to come back, but in a couple of years,” Gronkowski said. “The guy’s a beast. He can play anytime.”

Brandon Bolden, who played with Brady from 2012 through 2017 and in 2019, also believes it’s more probable than not that Brady will return to the league.

“I’d probably put the percentage of a comeback above 50,” Bolden said, “because you can just never rule out Tom Brady.”

That’s part of why Brady is still listed among the MVP odds for 2022. He may be retired, but people just aren’t used to counting Tom Brady out.

Soon enough, we’ll see if Brady jumped the gun on retirement or whether he will be riding off into the sunset to spend time with his family.

Source: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/tom-brady-stay-retired/kuxk0h1ouidxhqfwoetxrihq