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Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady admitted the start of free agency pressured him into ending his retirement. On February 1, Brady announced his retirement from professional football. On March 14, Brady announced he would be playing his 23rd season in the NFL in 2022.
"At this stage, it's like 55% yes and 45% no," Brady said on TNT, per ESPN. "It's not 100-0. That's just the reality. It's not that I'm not 100% committed, it's just as soon as I make the commitment to do it, it's like, 'Ugh.
All right, here we go.' It's like running a marathon. You can't decide two weeks before the marathon, 'Hey, I'm going to start running.' We got right to free agency and I felt some pressure to do it and talked to the team and organization, and it all worked out."
Brady on whether he had been ready to retire
Brady will be turning 45 before the next season begins.
After the 2021 season ended and Brady announced his retirement, some felt he was pressured into ending his career. Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion, was asked whether he had been ready to walk away from the game.
"Partly, you know, yes," Brady answered. "And I think when you're their [Mahomes' and Allen's] age, if you were to ask me, 'Are you going to play football next year?' I would say there's a 100% chance I'm playing. And I think as I've gotten older, that's changed because I have other responsibilities.
So the responsibilities are many people taking care of me and things that I have off the field that are really important to me like my family, my kids; my wife's done an amazing job of that. That's a big commitment from her, so it's harder when you get older.
I don't even think they know what's coming. Aaron [Rodgers] knows these things because your life gets bigger as we all do, our life gets more full -- there's more responsibilities."