The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Tom Brady officially announces retirement after 22 seasons

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

After a long weekend of speculation, false announcements and rumors floating around about Tom Brady’s future, the QB took to IG on February 1st to confirm his decision to walk away after 22 seasons. Luckily, Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones discussed Brady’s impact on the game, the Patriots, the Bucs and more this weekend LIVE on their YouTube channel. Here it is in podcast form on a bonus Athletic Football Show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, this is Lindsay Jones from the Athletic Football Show. Just a quick note on this podcast, Robert Mays and I recorded this on Saturday afternoon. Shortly after the news broke that Tom Brady was going to announce his retirement. Obviously, in the day or two that followed that, he backtracked, his agent backtracked. But now it is official. On Tuesday morning, Tom Brady officially announced his retirement from the NFL, saying that he no longer wanted to make the competitive commitment that it takes to be a great quarterback. And now on to the show. This is the athletic football show.

Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, it's Lindsay Jones. Lindsay, how are you? I'm great. I mean, it's a big day, right? Big day in the NFL. I used to joke when I would go on like a weekend trip and people would ask,

well, you have to work today on like a Friday afternoon. I said, well, no, I don't really have to work. But if Tom Brady retired, I'd probably have to do something. That was always the example I would use when I would mention something that moved the needle so much that it shook the NFL world to its core. And here we are on Saturday, January 29th, 2022, and Tom Brady is walking away. That reports from ESPN from Jeff Darlington and Adam Schefter say that he is retiring, in fact, retiring, a day that never really seemed like it would come. I mean, there were so many moments where it felt like it should, where it felt like it might be. the right time.

And it's almost kind of surreal. So what was your reaction? I mean, when you saw it, what was your first thought? Yeah, I mean, this is a landscape shifting day in the NFL because, and we're going to talk. We'll get into like kind of what this means for the league. But I mean, this is a guy who has been the face of the NFL for basically two decades, has accomplished more than anybody else. He has changed the way that we think about the quarterback position.

He has changed what is possible for that position. So, yeah, it's just, I mean, I don't think I'm ultimately surprised that he came to this decision. I'm only surprised that it was only six days since he last played and that the playoffs are still going on, that he didn't take a little bit longer to think all this through and to maybe make an announcement at a different point. So just the timeline of it, I was 14 years old when Tom Brady won his first Super Bowl. I was in eighth grade. I do not know a world without Tom Brady as an adult person. And it's just so strange to look it back on this and even try to take a step back and contextualize,

which we will do in a second. But as far as this moment, it makes sense to me. It's probably a little quick. You're right. But he has nothing left that he has to prove. And even you could have said that years ago. But there was always going to be the question when it came to the Brady-Belichick partnership of who deserves credit. How do you parse this? Who is really responsible for what the Patriots were for

two decades? And in his first season without Bill Belichick, year one, after the Patriots like, you know what? Thank you very much for your time. We're going to move in a different direction. He goes and wins the fucking Super Bowl. It's insane. And then I understand after that, maybe that's the time to walk away. But when you look at what the Bucks did last off season, the commitments they made to keeping that roster together. How good that roster was. You know, we can talk about what that season was last year and them finally winning and what it means for Tom Brady's legacy.

The Bucks weren't this shoddy roster that lacked talent. They were really good. They had a lot of really good players. Yeah, he was the missing piece there. Exactly. And so you bring it back. It's not as if they were the best team in football of the entire 2020 season. You know, they came on late as a wild car team.

They didn't even win the division to go on and win the Super Bowl. And this year really gave them a chance to own the season. And he did. At age 44, he led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns. If you had given him the MVP award, I totally understand it. I wouldn't have even blinked at it. And he almost certainly will finish second in that voting in a couple weeks here. That in my mind was the kind of the last thing of I want to show you guys that I'm still the best player in football at this age.

And he pretty much did just as good. So now, what is there left? And if you look at the comments that he made on his podcast after that last game and his kids and his wife watching him take all those hits, at a certain point, that should take a toll. You know, when he, that game reminded me of the AFC championship game against the Broncos in 2015, which is how much punishment he was taking. At that point, he wasn't going to walk away.

But now, why do you need to have those games anymore? What else is there for Tom Brady to do? The answer is nothing. And I know that part of the reason he's a superhero is because he didn't think like the rest of us do. He's not wired like the rest of us do. But I think it's a very human conclusion to say, you know what? That's it. That was enough.

I've proved everything I need to. It's time for me to walk away. And I would say the one other thing in that is that, you know, he very much understands, like he talks to all the other quarterbacks. He's very much in tune with what all of his peers have gone through. I'm sure he remembers every single thing that was said about Drew Brees. last season and watching Drew Brie's kind of fall off that physical cliff. He absolutely knows what Peyton Manning went through in 2015 and how difficult it was for Peyton Manning to get through that season, when the physical decline happened.

And that hasn't happened for him. You know, he's never had a moment where you've looked at him and you said he doesn't have it anymore. And maybe he didn't want that. Maybe his ego didn't want that, right? Wouldn't it be amazing to walk away as one of the best players, if not arguably the best player in football and never have to face down that version of one time? He never had to face that addition of Father Time never really came for him, right?

It's really, you know, it's really incredible that he's going to be able to get to walk away on his own terms. In Tom versus Time, Tom won. It was a definitive victory for Tom Brady. All right. Let's try to wrap our arms around what Tom Brady was. It is not easy to do to kind of gain some perspective on what 22 seasons of Tom Brady have looked like. Where would you even want to start with this conversation? I mean, he had one of the things that's so incredible about Tom Brady as well, like, because his career lasted as long as it did is he had a ton of different, like, I mean, he evolved a ton. I mean, every single season was different. He won a lot of games with teams that were built in completely different ways. You know, the guy who won the first Super Bowls in the early 2000s when, you know, he was a really young guy were completely different than the Super Bowl teams from his later years with the Patriots and certainly different than.

the way he played. So I don't know. I mean, you know, and then you have so much of his legacy is being a sixth round draft pick, being pick 199. That's something that is inextricably linked to the way that he played, the way that he approached every single day. So I don't know. I mean, maybe is it our kind of our favorite, favorite memories or, you know, from those early days. I want to talk about those eras because that to me is the most remarkable thing about him. And obviously it's possible because of the time that it spanned. But if you just want to break it up into chunks, right the 2001 through 2006-ish era feels like one chunk where he was a very good quarterback on a great set of Patriots teams that won multiple Super Bowls at 0-4-05 run when they won two in a row that was

a really really good team where he was a good quarterback as part of that overall equation and then that 06 season happens where they have bruchet called well whoever else he was thrown to in that game against the Patriots in that aFC championship game and and New England and Bill Belichick looked at that situation and said, screw this, we're not doing this anymore. They go get Randy Moss and Wes Walker. And that 2007 season, I don't know if it's the thing I'll remember most about Tom Brady's career, but I remember how vivid it is.

It's so vivid in my mind. They change football. And that 07 Patriots team changed the way we play in the NFL, change the way we think about how offenses should look in the NFL. well, look at how Wes Welker just redefined what slot receivers are, how much they played from the shotgun, how spread out it was. What it did for Randy Moss's career? What it did for Randy Moss's career and legacy. When I think about that team, I was a sophomore in college that year.

And I remember we used to go to a bar called the Coliseum in Columbia, Missouri. And I vividly remember games from that year. I mean, it's just a random year when I was 20 years old. But the Dolphins game from early in the season. and is what it felt like to watch that group play with each other. They were unstoppable. It was such a special team to watch. And that ushered in this era of Tom Brady as superstar.

I am arguably the best player in football, Tom Brady, blow for blow with Peyton Manning. You have to talk about me in this rare air. And that was that stretch. But that next stretch for as great as I think the teams were, they also went through that drought where they weren't winning Super Bowls, where that is kind of there was like that what if. The idea of that 07, 2011 teams never winning Super Bowls as those two offenses, I mean, those are two of the best offenses we've ever seen in the NFL. And they went through that little lull, but his greatness was really unquestioned at that point.

We talked about and thought about him in a different way after that 07-50 touchdown season. And then in 2011, when they had that offense, and it was the gronk years. And then you go into this era after that. Before we move into that era, the middle of this middle era, he also tore his. is ACL and missed an entire season, which we cannot leave out because that is certainly part of, you know, I think now when we talk about players having tearing their ACLs, quarterbacks specifically, it was a completely different conversation when Tom Brady did in 2008. I mean, huge questions about his recovery timeline. What sort of player was he going to be after that. So that was another kind of defining moment. And it was also robbed from us. That season was robbed from us. Think about how good that Patriots team still was with Matt Castle. Yeah, that was my first. That was my first. first year covering the NFL and the Broncos played a Monday night football game in Foxborough. And yeah, I remember that game got Josh McDaniels, a head coaching job. It made Matt Castle a lot of money.

Yes, it did. Else were in the NFL. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's one other part of that is the impact that his injury had, not just on him, but on kind of the rest of the NFL as well. And then you get to that, it's hard to figure out what years you should make the markers. but kind of the 2014 to 2018 range when Julian Edelman kind of ascends and you have the past catching running back as a huge part of what their overall recipe was like. And even in that stretch, he was, they won multiple Super Bowls. They were the beast in the AFC as he's creeping up into his 40s and he's playing at this ridiculously high level still. So you break it up and it's almost like he had three different Hall of Fame careers, at least two.

and he's a different sort of player in all of them and his willingness and ability to adapt to what they needed to do and what he needed to be throughout all of those different versions. It's just absolutely wild. And then you get to this final version, which is almost the most mind-boggling of all of them. As he steps into his mid-40s with a new team, and you go from this type of offense in New England

in that last stretch where it's a lot of dink and dunk, and it's very surgical, and they operate in the underneath areas of the field, and that's just how they have to win to this New England or this Tampa team where he's, I think he had led the NFL in air yards per target in 2020 with one of the lowest times to throw in football and just this style of play that should be impossible. And the arm strength was there over the last couple years.

He was one of the most exciting quarterbacks in football over the last two seasons with the bucks. So just even that final evolution is hard to truly. comprehend because of how ridiculous it is on its face. Yeah. And I would say one other, we talked about kind of the timing and what was left to prove. I would say the one other thing about this very final era is that he was not healthy for the 2020 season.

He spent most of that year dealing with a knee surgery. He had it surgically repaired this offseason. So he came back for one final year where he was kind of the guy he wanted to be and playing in an offense that might kind of. better cater to his skills while he, while he was healthy. So that's certainly like the CODA. Like I don't know if it's a whole other era of his career, but it's like, you know, you had to publish like a new edition of the book and tag it on, you know, tag it on there at the end of, you know, kind of a post, a post script and wrapped up any really lasting

questions that we might have had. What is the thing you'll remember most? Is there a moment, a game, a throw as you're trying to go back through it. I know that's hard because it's a rich text. For sure. What would you land on if you had to pick something? Yeah. I mean, so I think there's, you know, look, I've been covering the NFL since 2008. So I think I have like Tom Brady memories as a fan, like before I was covering the NFL.

And for me, it was the tuck rule game. I have like really vivid memories of watching that game. I grew up a Broncos fan, you know, living in Colorado. So I remember being like kind of happy, I guess that the Raiders weren't going to win that game, you know, 19 year old me or whatever that was in my college apartment. I hope Amy Trask isn't listening right now. But I would say it's like from the professional side of my career, being in the stadium for 28 to 3, being at that Super Bowl in Houston, and just feeling what it was like in that building when it started to turn. And you just knew that the kind of their direction that it was going. And then here comes this like Superman and it felt inevitable.

And that moment, that game has kind of shifted the way that I've thought about Tom Brady every moment since. It was, you know, the Super Bowl in Minneapolis the next year, that insane game where the Eagles are going back and forth. And, you know, Brady got the ball back with like 150 to go. And you just, like, I felt I had to write. I was at USA Today at the time and I had to write, we called our mobile gamer where you have to file it at the two minute warning. And it gets pushed out. I mean, like, millions of people are reading this. I think it's the most red thing I've ever written in my entire life.

I mean, literally millions of views on it. And like he gets the ball back with 150. And I'm like writing the Tom Brady led another historic Super Bowl comeback. And then he got stripsacked. And it was like, wait, what? You know, but it's informed everything where you just feel like he can do this. And you felt it last week against the Bucks where here comes this, or against the Rams, excuse me, like he can do it.

Like it seems improbable, but he's going to put his team in position to do it. And it didn't always work out, right? It didn't work out last weekend. But he was going to put his team in position to do. it every single time. That's what will stick with me the most, I think, too, is just this inhuman level of belief that he instilled that he invoked from all of us. And not just the, I mean, in every single moment, that 28 to three game, I was in that

building and I watched that game happen. And that just feeling that it was going to happen, it was, they were going to come back, they were going to win. The level of belief that he clearly instilled in that Bucks team last year, it was a talented team, but to kind of transform what they thought they were capable of in that moment and just that season is wild. Last week and just how clear it was that they still had a chance in that game because Tom Brady was their quarterback.

That feeling and that sense that they could do anything and win any game because he was there is really hard to shake. And that especially in my professional career, that's what will stick with me the most. And I think just on a broader level, just the way that he defined an era of we think about football. You know, the passing era and the passing boom started in that 2011 kind of range. It kind of maybe started even with that 2007 season. And the way that Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and Aaron Rogers and Drew Breeze reshaped how we think about football, how we think about the ways you need to be successful, the place a quarterback has in the

overall calculus of winning football teams. Tom Brady was at the forefront of that, right? That era begins in the second half of Tom Brady's career, but right in the heat and right in just the heart of what he was and where he was successful. Before we get into, I think I have some more stuff I want to say about the Brady legacy. I do want to say it's, we're recording this at 345. We're live right now, but we're recording this at 345 on Saturday afternoon Eastern time. And there's still kind of some weirdness out there.

ESPN obviously reported this news, Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington. Jeff Darlington especially, who is extremely plugged in. Like there is not a single reporter I trust more about Tom Brady stuff than Jeff Darlington. We will say that as we were recording this, the Bucks have not been told this. They don't know this. Bruce Arian has not yet been told this our Greg Amin, our Bucks beat writer. He just tweeted it's been an hour since ESPN reported Tom Brady's retirement.

NFL accounts, Brady Brand accounts have acknowledged it, but the team has said nothing. And just checking a few moments ago, Bruce Ariens hasn't been told he's retiring. So it doesn't add up right now. And Don Yee, who is Tom Brady's agent, texted, Adam Schafter and he said, I understand the advanced speculation about Tom's future without getting into the accuracy or inaccuracy of what's being reported. Tom will be the only person to express his plans with complete accuracy. He knows the realities of the football business and planning calendar as well as anybody, so that should be soon. What this says to me is that Brady, who has never wanted anything done by accident, you know, he is as image conscious as anybody we've ever

seen in the NFL outside of probably Peyton Manning probably is planning some sort of more formal announcement. I'm sure there will be a video, probably a statement. I mean, there'll probably be a lot, you know, a lot more stuff that's coming out. And this is, but look, these type of things almost never happen on the players terms. I mean, remember the Andrew Luck situation where, you know, that leaked out, you know, Tom, Peyton Manning's, Peyton actually called Chris Mortensen and said, like, you can have this like I want you to be first and then he like started calling his teammates and everything with that but um my my guess is that like this is right but brady wants to be the one to like formally say it so i don't think we're wrong to be speculating about any of this

listen if we are then you can just forget we did all of this but it still matters we'll run it we'll run it's fine we'll do it again in two weeks when he actually does it but i just think this is very much like a you know Brady needs wants to have the production element and all of it branded They'll probably be merchandise. Like you can like get a NFT of his retirement announcement, all of those sorts of things. But to circle back. So you were talking about how he changed. He was part of this era that changed football.

I would say the other part of that and his legacy is that he changed what it means to play quarterback and what it is going to mean for every single guy who plays after him and what they think is possible about how long you can play, what it takes to play as long as you did, the mental side of it, the quarterback head coach relationship. but, you know, I don't think we're going to see, it's not going to be a regular thing where we see guys playing at 42, 43, 44 winning Super Bowl at age 43. I don't think we're going to see that. But I think it is going to change what we think about for this next generation of quarterbacks, whether that's the guys that are now approaching their later 30s, the, you know, the Matthew Staffords and Aaron Rogers and that group of guys, if they look and say, you know what, I can, the rules are different. The technology for how I take care of my body is different.

I can play till I'm 41, 42, 43, 37, 38. That doesn't have to be the end of my career. And then if you look at think about guys like Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert and, you know, Patrick Mahomes, who is 26, how much longer their careers can be because Tom Brady showed them how to do it. And he established a blueprint for what it takes to have longevity beyond what anybody ever thought was possible. It's an era where you're watching those guys and the Peyton Mannings and the Tom Brady's and the Philip Riverses and the Drew Breases, the way they played the position. I didn't know if we'd ever see another group like that. And Joe Burrow and Mack Jones aren't necessarily those fleet of foot type guys and super nimble.

Playmaking quarterbacks is kind of how I'd refer to them with playmaking traits. They're more of these old school. I'm going to get the ball out quick. I'm going to win in the pocket, all of that other stuff. So I don't know exactly if this group is going to go by the wayside. I was talking to a coach yesterday and he asked me that. Do you think we'll see more of this group when Tom Brady walks away? I don't know.

It feels like we might. It feels like those elements of playing quarterback are always going to be there. But when you watch Tom Brady at the end and when you watch Peyton Manning at the end and Drew Brees, it's just remarkable how much they could win between the ears. And what that just log of experience and knowledge brought to the way that they could play the position, how they could make you wrong at any single moment. That's what it felt like when you were watching the Bucks over the last couple of years. It's just that it didn't matter.

He had the answers to the test before it even started. And when you combine that with the players he was playing with, it was a really special combination at times. Watching that Bucks offense when they were rolling was as fun as watching any version of an offense Tom Brady ever played in. And they're just kind of putting a pin in it before we get to what's next for a couple of these groups. That last couple years in Tampa, Right or wrong, probably wrong, made me rethink how I viewed Tom Brady.

It was so easy over the course of that four or five year stretch near the end of his Patriots tenure, even if they were winning Super Bowls, even as they were winning Super Bowls, to just have your eyes glaze over and just be not inspired by the greatness that Tom Brady put on display. Watching what they were offensively in Tampa over the last couple years, maybe it was a different uniform. Maybe it was getting out from under Belichick's shadow, whatever it was. I was in awe all over again of just who he was and what he could accomplish. It's hard to comprehend how special of a player he was over the last couple years at this age in a new setting, in this NFL with those guys who are 25 and 26 with these otherworldly abilities chasing him. The fact that he could still be the same guy, just as on touchable. and win a Super Bowl last year, it really was important to me as far as adding one more layer

to the legacy that he is that he'll have in the player that he was. Again, right or wrong. Well, and I think one of the hard things or, you know, the complicated things is, you know, when you were in one place, I mean, he was in one place for so long, he and Bill Belichick were so tied together. And for as much greatness as there was during that time together, there was also a lot of kind of ugliness, right? There were cheating scandals. There was deflate gate and what his role in that and everything, which I think ultimately like history will probably show is a little bit overblown, but it was silly. The things that they really focus on, like this is the thing that we have to go after.

But, you know, there was tough stuff that they went through. And look, as reporters who cover the NFL and were at all these events, like, it does get a little stale, right, when it's like Tom Brady at the Super Bowl every year in Bill Belichick at the Super Bowl every year. And, you know, there was all the whole year with the MAGA had. And like there was just a lot of stuff. So there was just a lot of like kind of anti. Like he just got tired of it, right?

Like the Tom Brady stuff and like the constant, you know, he kind of became like a villain for a lot of the country. And, you know, I don't think I ever looked at him as a villain. I definitely had the like, I was excited about the new generation of quarterbacks coming in because it was like, I was new something different or whatever. And I think you're 100% right about the last era of his career when he went to Tampa where he got to be separated from the box. we got to, or from the Patriots, we got to see him kind of come out of shell more. It looked like he was enjoying himself. He, you know, opened himself up a little bit more.

He kind of was like corny on social media, just like like every 44 year old dude is, you know, as he was trying to kind of adjust to like what the kids are doing. And then also kind of just like put him in a different offense and let him do something different. So, you know, I think whether you like loved him, whether you were, you know, the, the mass holiest of mass hole and love everything New England and, you know, the Tom Brady guy. Or, you know, you grew up in Denver, where I live, where the huge rivals or you were a Dolphins fan or wherever it was, you just have to respect the career that he put together and what he was able to do every week. And I think that was really what we saw over the last two years

was a guy who was doing something new, doing something hard, you know, moving. trying to get into a new situation and new teammates and moving your family and all that kind of stuff. I just really kind of respect that, you know, that side of it of I just had this new appreciation for him as a player and a little bit of him as a person too and what he was kind of going through once he was able to separate himself from New England. Just there's so many moments that you forget. I mean, going back to that point about the young quarterback.

So I was at the AFC championship game when they beat the chiefs in overtime. Yeah. And it was kind of a thought of like, oh, man, I'm going to spend a supera week with the Patriots again. But that's what it was. Because you're thinking like, oh, what new stories? Like, what can I write about Tom Brady that I haven't written yet? It ceased to be interesting at times. And that's my own fault for just a lack of creativity and a lack of just being closed-minded.

But there are moments where it ceased to be interesting. And I think that's why the last Tampa stretch was so important. But just think back to what was it, the 14 season? The we're on to Cincinnati game. where they lose this, they lose to, I think it was the Chiefs, right? They lost for the Chiefs. It was the Chiefs on Monday Night Football and they have this miserable game. And it's easy to think in that moment, man, is Tom Brady done?

Is this it? Yeah. Has this run its course with the Patriots? That was seven years ago. And then now we're in this moment. It's just so hard to think about it. And when you think about that stretch of seven years and when you break it up into three, seven years stretches is what his career was, it's impossible to comprehend it fully.

And I think that we're going to need a lot of time to truly contextualize it and truly step back and say, what was he, what does he mean, even if we spent the last half hour talking about it. So last thing, what happens now? I was talking to a head coach yesterday,

and he just mentioned offhand when we're talking about other stuff. You know, what if Brady leaves? What if the bucks are in the quarterback carousel? And he almost don't even entertain it. I'll self-believe it when I see it. When he retires, maybe we can talk about this, but now it's real. So now you have another open quarterback spot.

You have a Bucks team that really was set up to be pretty good again with all the talent that they have. Now they're looking for a quarterback. There's just a lot. There's a wrench that this throws into the off-season picture for sure. Yeah. I mean, so Mike Sando, our colleague wrote, I don't if it was last week or two weeks ago, he kind of did a deep dive into the 20-22 quarterback market and kind of the entire league-wide landscape. And he put 19 teams into, uh, that could be looking or could have a new

quarterback next year. So now you got to throw the bucks into that mix. I think he clarified, we should probably pull the giants out now because, um, they've kind of reinforced that Daniel Jones will be their guy next year. But yeah, but this opens up another guy, another team that will be looking for a quarterback that has a potential, unless they want to commit to Kyle Trask. Right. Yeah. I mean, so they drafted Kyle Trask last year. What? Second rounds. Is that a second round? He was a second round pick. Um, I don't think he was active for a single game this year. We don't know anything about him and his sort of readiness to be a quarterback.

They also have Blaine Gabbart, your favorite quarterback. We know your affinity for Blaine Gabbard. But that it's completely, I mean, look, the NFC South now, we don't know who the Saints quarterback is going to be. We don't know who the Bucks quarterback is going to be. We don't know who the Panthers quarterback is going to be. Do we know who the Falcon? I mean, that entire division could be completely, I mean,

that completely changes. It becomes wide open. And now you look at just the overall scope of the league and especially the NFC, like what if Rogers leaves? What if Rogers gets traded to an AFC team? Yeah, what if Rogers comes to the AFC West and you have like four really good quarterbacks in this division and then the NFC South has zero.

And you're looking at the NFC period. You know, obviously the Rams. Stafford's going to be back. So I mean, the Rams got to feel pretty good about this. And with the Rogers thing on the horizon, the Niners, we'll see what happens with Tray Lance. but the teams that look at themselves as contenders in the NFC, this is a big moment for them.

And I mean, the quarterback carousel questions are going to be never ending. Like you said, two-thirds of the league could be looking for somebody. There are way more teams who are going to be looking for quarterbacks than there are going to be quality veteran starters available. What it's going to do, it's going to like, I mean, I'm sure the Niners are like, sweet. We're going to get a sweet haul for Jimmy Garapolo, who now has the Niners in the NFC championship game, potentially in the Super Bowl, but are ready to. to move on from him. You know, people are going to be calling for calling the Raiders, whoever the new coaches, Josh McDaniels,

or whoever it ends up being to find out about Derek Carr, maybe Kirk Cousins. Yeah, I mean, this tier of quarterbacks, I mean, it's going to be wild. I mean, this draft class isn't great. So this is a great year if you're one of those like six or seven teams who is set at quarterback and you should be freaking out if you are one of the like five or six teams that isn't in that like maybe we a new quarterback, but you're in the like, we are desperate for one.

If you're Washington, Pittsburgh, Denver, Tampa, Carolina. Like, you better be freaking out because this is a bad game of musical chairs. I mean, only a couple people are going to leave this with a quarterback that they're happy with. So you made a joke about Blaine Gabbart in my affinity for Blaine Gabbard. I covered Blaine Gabbard during his first year as a starter at Mizzou, which was 2009. It was the first year after Matt Iberfluse left as the defensive coordinator at Mizzou. He's now the head coach of the Bears. Blaine Gabbard is the backup quarterback for the Bucks 12 years later.

And that 2009 season was Tom Brady's first year back after tearing his ACL. Even after that year, if you had ended his career in that moment, he would have been a Hall of Famer. And 12 years later, he has stacked up how many more Super Bowl rings, another MVP award, how many more MVP-worthy seasons. It's impossible to truly comprehend. And again, we spent a lot of time digging through it here over the next couple days.

Is there anything else you want to say in this immediate reaction about the greatest NFL player of all time? Yeah. I mean, he's just like the stats are just insane of just like how many more passing yards and touchdowns he threw like in each decade. And that like even into his 40s that he was a more like statistically productive quarterback than he was in his 20s. Like it's it just shows you how many arrows of football he has been a part of.

But no, I mean, I guess it's just, you know, look, look where I'm 40. You're a few years younger than me. I was 18 when he was drafted. So I guess I don't know the NFL as an adult either without Tom Brady. I mean, there's just generations now of football fans who we only know the NFL one way because of Tom Brady. And look, he'll be now eligible for the pro football Hall of Fame in five years, him and Ben Rathosberger together. Will Aaron Rogers join them? That would be a pretty wild first year eligible group.

But yeah, they can just now go go speed this along. you know, he'll have some sort of, he can go back to Foxborough next year and they'll do like a, you know, a nice homecoming on like the Sunday net football game that he, or CBS game, whichever game that was this year where they can, you really kind of go back and like appreciate him. They can go ahead and retire number 12 in New England. When you look at a montage when it finally comes, there are going to be moments you totally forgot about that we're forgetting about right now because it's so long and there's just so many things. I mean, the throw that may stick with me the most is the throw he missed to Randy Moss in the Super Bowl. That one that was 65 yards in the air from the numbers all the way to the other numbers that almost could have won them that game if it was completed. It was just an insane moment. And there are a dozen of them.

What about the throw to Grancowski and the Super Bowl a couple years ago against the Rams where they just, they hadn't done anything in that game. And it's that drive. You just need one, yeah, one drive, one big throw. And it's Brady to Grunk. I mean, how many million times did we see? I mean, I think they'll end their career. You have to imagine that this will probably be it for Rob Gruncowski now, too, that that'll be a domino effect that Gronk's not going to come back to play.

It would be amazing if they went in together. If they went into the Hall of Fame together. Are we going to have to like expand the class? I mean, that would be a fun as hell. Could you imagine being in Canton for that party? It's amazing. I mean, you have the greatest quarterback of all time and the, I would say the greatest tight end of all time.

So that's one of my favorite throws and favorite plays because, you know, those two guys were so great together for so long. But when we talk about like clutch moments and that what did Brady do better than anybody? It was when championships. And that game was awful. It was like the worst offensive Super Bowl we've ever seen. But like you had this just one brilliant moment between, you know, the greatest quarterback and the greatest tight end ever, two guys that are going to be, you know, linked forever.

And now potentially be linked in the Hall of Fame, same class. We'll have a lot more time here over the next week or so over the next however long. And hopefully we'll have definitive. We can break down his like official video because I'm sure there's one. I'm sure there's one that's coming. I'm sure there are a million things I've forgotten this, but we're recording it about an hour after that news came down. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this.

Again, we'll have plenty more to come on the athletic. I'm sure there will be endless coverage. So please go check that out. Theathletic.com slash football show if you do not have a subscription. I appreciate you guys hanging out with us. Please go check out our championship weekend preview if you have not that I did with Nate Tice and our pick segment with Shiocapadia. Still plenty of time to dig into that before the games tomorrow.

We will be back tomorrow night. to the games. Me and Nate breaking down the AFC and NFC Championship games. So please come to join us. I'm going to the NFC Championship game. I will be on a plane to L.A. tomorrow morning.

So I'll be writing live from L.A. Sunday night. So make sure you read all of our championship game coverage too. Absolutely. Plenty of great stuff on the Athletic for you guys to check out. For now, appreciate you guys come and hang out with us on a Saturday afternoon.

We'll be back later. Talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.