Tom Brady has officially retired. After reports breaking in the weekend and being proved fake, Brady finally announced it himself and Shaquille O’Neal can’t believe it.
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Initially, reporter Adam Schefter came out with a Tweet that said Brady was retiring earlier this weekend. However, the news came too early. Immediately after, Brady’s agent Don Yee said he hadn’t reached a conclusion yet, a point that was echoed by Brady’s dad who said he still wasn’t close to making a decision.
After a lot of speculation, Brady finally came out today morning with an Instagram post declaring he won’t be coming back. Brady was very thankful of his coaches and teammate, and he made it very clear that this wasn’t an easy decision for him. Coming off of perhaps his second best season, Brady’s decision to walk away is a little surprising, but as he mentioned, there are other things that deserve his attention now.
Shaquille O’Neal wants Tom Brady to come back for one more season
For sports fans worldwide, the news is saddening. Brady has played 22 long, hard-fought, and incredibly successful seasons, and now at the end of his career, he’ll walk away as the greatest NFL player to have played the game. A seven time Super Bowl champion, Brady’s winning is perhaps the biggest attribute of his legendary career. Those seven Super Bowls are more than any NFL franchise has ever won.
Apart from that, Brady owns the all-time passing yards, touchdowns, completions, playoff wins, Super Bowl MVPs, and a whole list of other accomplishments which you can read about here. He played 20 seasons with the New England Patriots where he established himself atop the NFL mountain. The Patriots dynasty is one that will probably never be replicated again as Brady and Belichick built up something truly special during their time together, no matter how it ended.
While Brady won’t be getting the farewell tour other legends of the game received, nor will he ride off into the sunset like Peyton Manning, he will go out playing great football. He finished the 2021-22 NFL season as the leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, completions (most in NFL history), and is one of the frontrunners for the MVP award. Peyton Manning was playing the worst football of his career when he retired as was Ben Roethlisberger. Brady never hit the cliff that many greats did. Father Time simply had no answer for him.
On Brady’s Instagram post, several notable players and celebrities left meaningful comments and Lakers legend Shaquille O’Neal was one of them. Like many others, Shaq was congratulatory in his remarks but also wished he could see Brady on the field one more time.
It truly is tough to see someone like Brady walk away from the game, but as we know, nothing is permanent, and we should feel grateful that we were able witness this level of greatness for this long.
