Tom Brady’s coming back for a record 24th season, isn’t he?

Any talk of Tom Brady’s potential retirement was penciled in for the offseason following the conclusion of Super Bowl LVII. This was predominantly down to the fact that Brady’s team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, had a good chance of playing in the final at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona after an impressive season.

While some might argue that this was unlikely, it’s also easy to forget that Bucs won the Super Bowl in 2021 and have a change room that knows all too well how to win the greatest prize in American football however poorly the regular season may have gone at times.

Of course, that wasn’t to be after the Bucs stumbled at the first hurdle of the playoffs having been beaten by the Dallas Cowboys. It was a result that would have caused immense frustration.

Brady’s premature end

Sure, the Cowboys are not a bad team but you only have to look at how quickly they were knocked out of the playoffs after beating the Bucs to better grasp the mood in Tampa. Indeed, the San Francisco 49ers made light work of the franchise from Dallas which emphasized once more how the Bucs will be kicking themselves for not showing up.

On top of that, the 49ers, who punished the Cowboys, were then steamrolled by the Philadelphia Eagles, 31-7. As things stand, the Eagles are now the favorites to win the competition with the latest Super Bowl odds pricing Nick Sirianni’s men at -138 to lift the Vince Lombardi trophy.

By now, you can probably tell that the Bucs, for one reason or another, passed up a winnable opportunity against a prone-to-collapse Cowboys team which resulted at the end of the road for Brady.

Indeed, even if it was brief, the Cowboys marched on while Brady’s Bucs had to deal with the jarring trauma of defeat in the playoffs.

The focus shifts to Brady’s future sooner than expected 

What this development does do, however, is bring forward talk of a possible Brady retirement now that his offseason has begun somewhat prematurely. So, will Brady, arguably the greatest NFL player of all time, finally, call it a day?  Incredibly, there is reason to believe that he won’t and instead, will continue playing despite turning 46 next season.

To start with, it should be said this whole guessing game would naturally be made a lot easier if Brady just answered the questions about his future when asked. It goes without saying but following the Bucs’ defeat, journalists in the room quizzed the quarterback on this exact matter. What followed was Brady at his charming and humble best, but when he finally walked out of the room to enjoy what he described as a ‘good night’s sleep’, no one was any the wiser about whether Brady would report for preseason duty somewhere around the country in the coming spring.

Brady did everything but provide clarity on his future and incredibly, even indulged in a short monologue where he earnestly congratulated the present journalists for their ongoing efforts this season.

Now that some time has gone by and have had time to review his answers during the post-match press conference, most people would conclude that the 45-year-old is looking to buy time and not make any immediate decisions, the quarterback has, after all, already made a u-turn on one retirement announcement.

Given the enormity of the decision this time, it’s completely understandable why he won’t be drawn on what happens next.

The case for Brady playing on 

But given the Bucs’ underwhelming end to this current campaign and the fact that Brady was, in all likelihood, as shocked as anyone else that the curtain had come down on the season in the way that it did, you begin to wonder if this stage is befitting of a titan of the game to make his final bow. At least, shouldn’t Brady go out on his own terms after a career that has spanned over two decades and returned seven Super Bowls?

Crucially, another point to consider is if Brady himself has it in him to leave the sport he loves on a down note. In reality, it seems unlikely that he would be prepared to do so after a glittering career.

Of course, we can only speculate but owing to the nature of the result at the Raymond James Stadium and the fact that the Bucs’ hierarchy have been increasingly vocal about wanting to sign Brady again for the 2023 campaign, there is a very good chance that NFL fans will see Brady return for a record 24th season.