QB Tom Brady Retires From NFL After 23 Seasons with Buccaneers and Patriots
The greatest playing career in NFL history has come to an end, and this time there’s no turning back.
On Wednesday morning, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady announced his retirement in a video posted to Twitter. In the video, he acknowledged making a similar announcement exactly a year ago before finally changing his mind, but said this time was final.
“Hello guys, I’ll get to the point right now: I’m retiring for good,” Brady said in the video. “I know the process was pretty big last time, so when I woke up this morning I thought I’d press record and let you know first. So I won’t be long. I think you will only get one super emotional retirement essay, and I used mine last year. So really, thank you very much, to each and every one of you, for supporting me. My family, my friends, my teammates, my competitors, I could go on forever, there are too many. Thank you guys for letting me live my absolute dream. I wouldn’t change anything. I love you all.
And so Brady’s unprecedented career is capped at 23 seasons, as he managed to continue playing at a very high level until the age of 45, defying the rest of NFL history. He finishes as the most accomplished player in NFL history, which is why his most prominent nickname is the GOAT. It starts with its seven Super Bowl championships, more than any other NFL franchise. The seventh came in his freshman year with the Buccaneers in 2020, as he led that team to a dominating victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV. He has been selected to more Pro Bowls (15) than any other player at any position in league history. He is a three-time Associated Press NFL MVP and five-time Super Bowl MVP.
Besides the 2008 season, which ended for him in week one due to a knee injury, Brady led his team to the playoffs in 20 of his 21 seasons as a starter, including his three years as a Buccaneer. He had a remarkable 32-18 record as a playoff starter.
Brady’s list of records and accomplishments is so overwhelming it’s almost laughable. He is the NFL’s all-time regular season leader in pass attempts (12,050), completions (7,753), passing yards (89,214) and touchdown passes (649). No other quarterback is within 8,000 yards or 75 touchdowns of his current totals. Brady is also the league’s career leader in all those categories in the playoffs, with 1,200 completions on 1,921 attempts for 13,400 yards and 88 touchdowns.
Brady has won 251 regular season games and 35 playoff games, the two most for any player at any position in NFL history. His regular-season total is 20 better than kicker Adam Vinatieri and 65 better than the next two quarterbacks on the roster, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning. Brady also engineered the most game-winning drives (58) and fourth-quarter wins (46) of any quarterback ever played in the NFL.
As a Buccaneer, Brady needed just three seasons to reach second on the team’s all-time touchdown passing list (108, behind Jameis Winston’s 121) and third on the list of passing distances (14,643, behind Winston’s 19,737 and Vinny Testaverde’s 14,820). He also set new franchise single-season records in virtually every category in 2021 when he completed 485 of 719 passes for 5,316 yards and 43 touchdowns. (He then broke the attempted-and-completion marks again in 2022.) His dramatic arrival as an unrestricted free agent in 2020 ushered in the most successful three-season stint in franchise history, including the aforementioned Super Bowl championship and the first back-to-back division titles in team history.