This story was originally published by Dead Spin
FOX is expecting Tom Brady to be in the booth for his first full season as a broadcaster, but that hasn’t stopped the GOAT from continually teasing a return to the gridiron.
Back in April, Brady appeared on the DeepCut with VicBlends podcast and explained that he’d be willing to return to the NFL.
“I’m not opposed to it,” Brady said. “I don’t know if they’re going to let me if I become the owner of an NFL team. But I don’t know—I’m always going to be in good shape, always be able to throw the ball. To come in for a little bit like [Michael Jordan] coming back, I don’t know if they’d let me, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”
A few months have gone by since then, and Brady is teasing NFL fans again. In a video to the young quarterbacks in the NFL, Brady shared a warning.
“Just want those young bucks to know that if I wanted to come out of retirement, they still got something to deal with,” Brady said.
Brady is 47 years old. He’s a broadcaster now. He’s taking social media seriously as well, starting a vlog YouTube channel to document his retired journey.Â
But he keeps mentioning playing football again. And as long as he keeps mentioning it, people are going to wonder about it.Â
It’s wildly unlikely that the league would allow Brady to unretire and still hold ownership of a franchise. He would need to cross that hurdle. He’d also need to figure out his obligations to FOX, where he will be calling games starting in Week 1 of this season.Â
But on the other side of the coin, you have to imagine that there’s a team out there that would be crazy enough to give the old man a try. The last that we saw of Brady, he wasn’t the same swashbuckling quarterback that he was during his dynasty with the New England Patriots, but he was still pretty damn good.
There are plenty of really young, dumb quarterbacks in this league. Brady himself even called that out. Surely, a team would like to get ahold of Brady to have him lead their team and mentor their existing quarterback for the future.
While the above is merely an engagement grab from an NFL aggregator online, and this is no way a sourced report, it’s intriguing to ponder about. The Minnesota Vikings just lost their rookie quarterback from Michigan for the entire season. They have a head coach who played with the GOAT, and complimentary pieces to win now. Wouldn’t that shake up the NFC?
You can probably find a few other examples of teams from around the league that would be interesting options for Brady, even at his advanced age and several years removed from the game. But that’s the thing. It’s just a thought. A hypothetical. It’s probably never happening.
He’s 47. We’ll be enjoying him in the booth for the Dallas Cowboys vs. Cleveland Browns game on September 8. Ironically, these are two other fanbases that could be clamoring for Brady on the field depending on how their quarterback situations unfold in 2024.
