Tom Brady Talks Return to Football: ‘Never Say Never’

Tom Brady just retired from football last week, but he’s not ruling out a return to the NFL.

While chatting on the SiriusXM podcast “Let’s Go! With Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald and Jim Gray,” Brady was asked if he would ever consider a comeback.

Gray pointed out, “[Michael Jordan] came back. Muhammad Ali came back. Mike Tyson came back. So inevitably some quarterback's going to get hurt or not perform at the level and it's gonna start in July in training camp. It's gonna go again in September and probably again in October and November. How are you gonna entertain those thoughts? And would you ever consider that?”

Brady replied, “You know, I'm just gonna take things as they come. I think that's the best way to put it and I don't think anything, you know, you never say never. At the same time I know that I'm very, I feel very good about my decision. I don't know how I’ll feel six months from now…  But I try to make the best possible decision I can in the moment, which I did this last week. And, again, I think it's not looking to reverse course, I'm definitely not looking to do that. But in the same time I think you have to be realistic that you never know what challenges there are gonna be in life. Again, I loved playing. I'm looking forward to doing things other than playing. That's as honest as I can be with you there, Jim.”

Expanding on why he decided to retire, Brady said, “It's certainly not that I can't play or continue to play, but I think there's an important choice for me to make, you know, and I think the choice is, everything certainly comes at a cost, and the cost is what am I missing out on other aspects of my life? And things that are, as you get older, you experience things that are outside of the sport that demand the level of attention and energy that football has always gotten. And it's time for me to commit to those types of things. A lot of things have come up over the years in the last 10 years of my life as I've got closer to this decision this last week and it just in the end felt like it was just the right time to do it.”

Gray asked the 44-year-old if age played a role in his decision, and Tom told him, “I don't think it's, you know, a physical thing. I mean, it does require a lot of time and energy.  That's just the nature of football and if you wanna be good at it, you gotta commit all the time and energy you can to it… I've been to the Kentucky Derby a lot. So I look at those horses and they have the blinders on and you literally are just running full speed as fast as you can for basically the entire season and there's no time to look right or left.  And there's a lot of things that are happening in your life that, because you don't look right or left, you're still looking straight ahead, that you miss some things.”

The seven-time Super Bowl champ announced his retirement February 1 after 22 seasons.

At the time, he wrote on Instagram, “I have always believed the sport of football is an ‘all in’ proposition — if a 100% competitive commitment isn’t there, you won’t succeed, and success is what I love so much about our game.” He later added, “This is difficult for me to write, but here it goes: I am not going to make that competitive commitment anymore. I have loved my NFL career and now it is time to focus my time and energy on other things that require my attention.”

Brady went on to thank the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and others who had helped him along the way, ending with a big shout-out to his family.