Tom Brady, one of the world’s most decorated professional athletes and widely viewed as the greatest player in N.F.L. history, announced Wednesday that he would retire. For good this time.
“I’ll get to the point right away,” Brady, who just completed his 23rd season, said in a short video posted on social media. “I’m retiring. For good.”
Brady, 45, exits the league as the winner of seven Super Bowls, an N.F.L. record, as well as atop the list for almost every major passing statistical category. He was the oldest active player in the N.F.L. this season, but still played at an elite level through the end.
Brady retired after his third season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, reversing his decision and returning to play after announcing he would retire in February 2022. This season was his worst a professional — the team finished with an 8-9 record and lost in the wild-card round of the playoffs to the Dallas Cowboys. But Brady threw for 4,694 passing yards, the third most in the league, while completing 66.8 percent of his passes.
The season occurred in the backdrop of a tense period in his personal life. Brady and the supermodel Gisele Bündchen, his wife of more than 13 years, announced in October that they filed for divorce.
He is expected to step into a role as a TV broadcaster, after having in 2022 signed a deal with Fox Sports reportedly worth $375 million over 10 years.
Brady joined the Buccaneers in 2020, leading the team to a Super Bowl victory in his first year in Tampa Bay. To do so, he left the franchise for which he had played his entire career to that point. After spending two decades with the New England Patriots, where he won six world championships, Brady did not come to new contract terms and the team let him leave as an unrestricted free agent.
The Patriots drafted Brady in the sixth round of the 2000 N.F.L. Draft, and he won the starting quarterback job midway through his second season after replacing the injured Drew Bledsoe. Brady had been linked to Coach Bill Belichick throughout his career in New England as the two shaped one of the league’s marquee dynasties. Along with winning six Super Bowls, tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most among the N.F.L.’ s franchises, the Patriots appeared in nine Super Bowls and 13 A.F.C. championship games.
But his career in New England also faced challenges. The N.F.L. in 2015 suspended Brady for five games after an investigation into whether the team knowingly deflated footballs to gain in advantage in the 2015 A.F.C. championship game. Brady served a four-game suspension for being “generally aware” of the scandal known as Deflategate.
After appearing to fumble against the Oakland Raiders in the 2001 A.F.C. Championship.Brady was also the face of the so-called “tuck rule,” which states that if a quarterback loses possession of the ball while his arm completes an intentional forward motion, the play should be ruled an incomplete pass instead of a fumble.
