Tom Brady has made it official. After 22 incredible years in the NFL, he has retired, leaving behind a legacy nobody will come close to matching anytime soon.
Advertisement
Brady retires with seven Super Bowl rings (more than any NFL franchise), most passing yards and touchdowns in NFL history, most wins in NFL history, and about 40 other NFL records you can read about here.
There really isn’t going to be anyone like Brady ever again, and his career is right up there with the other greats of sports worldwide. Brady set the standard for greatness the minute he won his first Super Bowl, and he hasn’t looked back since then.
Brady’s retirement can be compared to Michael Jordan’s retirement from the NBA (the third one) as both players impacted the game in such a massive way. Brady’s killer mindset and competitive nature kept him in the game for so long, and it resulted in a career nobody would have predicted from a 6th round draft pick.
Tom Brady gets compared to Michael Jordan as memes emerge
No matter what the situation, no matter what the context, meme culture wil continue to be prevalent in every situation. Brady’s retirement is no different. While many meme pages weren’t able to capture Brady’s downfall as the former Bucs and Patriots quarterback never fell prey to Father Time, they were able to find another way to poke fun at him.
In fact, the memes around Brady were uplifting in a way, highlighting just how competitive he was. Just take a look at this thread, particularly the third slide.
As you may or may not know if you’ve kept up with Jordan’s career, the NBA GOAT retired three times. He first retired after the 1993 Finals when the Bulls completed the first of their two three-peats. He would sit out 2 seasons before coming back full-time in the 1995-96 season when the Bulls set the then-NBA record for wins in a season, going 72-10. That season kickstarted Jordan and the Bulls’ second three-peat.
Following that, Jordan retired again only to come back again to play a couple more years with the Washington Wizards before finally calling it quits for good. If Brady followed a similar path, it would truly be insane.
For one, we have no clue if Brady could even do that considering he retired putting up perhaps the second best season of his career. Whatever the case is, we won’t find out for a little while at least, and until then, we should be appreciative.
Brady showed us something no NFL player ever has before, and it’s going to be tough to find anyone who will match him ever again.
