Tom Brady won’t be winning an eighth Super Bowl, at least not in 2023.
The veteran quarterback found himself on the wrong end of Tampa Bay’s wild-card round result against the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night, with the Buccaneers losing 31-14.
Given the quick playoff exit, speculation over Brady’s future has intensified. The 45-year-old has been linked to multiple teams this year and, despite his standards dropping this season, he’s still one of the best QBs in the game.
Brady remained mum on his future after the game, though it’s believed that his comments paint a clear picture as it pertains to a departure from Tampa Bay. Yet only time can tell what’s next for the seven-time Super Bowl champ.
The player did have a conversation with ESPN’s Joe Buck and Troy Aikman prior to the game, the details of which they shared with Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter on the back of it.
“When I talk to people about it, people inside the game believe he’s coming back for another year,” Buck said. “Whether that’s here in Tampa Bay or that’s with some other organization, nobody knows.
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“But I will go back to what we said in the game. Unless he’s a great actor, he had a real heart-to-heart conversation with us about this. I think he’s been through a lot off the field and probably more than we give credit for,” Buck continued. “When I talked to these players and people on this coaching staff tonight before the game, they said Brady’s kind of been back to himself over the last three weeks. Which tells me for a while that he was really out of it with everything that was going on with the team and everything that was going on in his life.
“So I believe him, that he doesn’t know if he’s coming back to play and we’ll just all have to find out at the same time together.”
“You don’t play until your 45-years-old unless you just really love the game and he obviously does,” Aikman chimed in. “He’s done it all.
“But tonight, let’s be honest. He looked like a 45-year-old quarterback and I think if he comes back we do know that if was available and teams out there that needed a quarterback, Tom Brady would be at probably the top of the list.
“I mean, he’s well regarded, he can still play at a high level, but he’s got to have those pieces around him. Most of us needed that when we were in our early thirties. So if that’s in Tampa, great.
“But you can’t throw the ball 66 times and expect to do anything. And he’s been doing that for the last couple years. He’s led the league in pass attempts for the last two years at 44- and 45-years-old and that’s uh, whatever the reasons are, that has to change wherever he is.”
Brady has been strongly linked to the Las Vegas Raiders, who are searching for a new QB after moving on from Derek Carr. He’s also a rumored target for his former employers, the New England Patriots. But retirement is also an attactive option as he has a lucrative television deal waiting on him whenever he decides to quit.
