National Football League

Tom Brady gets candid about joining the broadcast booth

Updated Jun. 3, 2022 11:10 p.m. ET

One day in the (near?) future, Tom Brady will finally step away from the playing field. But he won’t be leaving the game entirely.

The most accomplished quarterback of all time is signed on to be the lead NFL analyst at FOX Sports once he retires.

After getting as much out of the game as anyone ever has, Brady is motivated to give back. In his first comments since his partnership with FOX was announced in May, and also since he came out of a brief retirement in March, the Buccaneers QB explained why exactly he’ll eventually jump into the broadcast booth.

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"I think the thing is, you said I love football," Brady said Wednesday night after competing in "The Match" golfing competition. "And I agree, I love football. I care a lot about football, too, I felt like I’m always going to be involved in it, one way or another. I think about the opportunity to travel around and see these guys on Friday afternoons. Watch them [practice] and say ‘Hey man, I think these are a couple things that work for me.' And I was around the most amazing coach with Coach [Bill] Belichick, the most amazing coaches over a period of time.

"I played with Hall of Famers Randy Moss to Ty Law to Richard Seymour. … And how do you give back to a sport that’s given so much to me? I think that I have a lot of education around me. I’m excited when that time comes to fully focus on that thing. Give back to the game in a way that so many people have supported me and taught me things."

Brady has been maximizing his own for the past 22 years but struggled to commit to a 23rd. The seven-time Super Bowl champion initially retired in early February, only to reverse the decision just 40 days later. The change of heart came less than a week before free agency, which he described as a self-imposed deadline because Tampa Bay needed to know who its starting QB would be moving forward.

Brady, who turns 45 in August, disclosed that his desire to keep playing barely outweighs wanting to retire.

"At this stage, it's like 55% yes and 45% no. It's not 100-0. That's just the reality," Brady said. "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. Alright, 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’s return begat several others for Tampa Bay, as well as some notable new additions. With the 15-time Pro Bowl QB in tow, the Bucs are again expected to compete for the title. They’ll be led by a new but familiar head coach in Todd Bowles, who takes over for the retired Bruce Arians after serving as the team’s defensive coordinator the past three seasons.

As he sat on a panel next to Aaron Rodgers and young stars Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, Brady, who’s currently under contract for just the 2022 season, intimated his playing career could be over soon and that he really was about ready to hang up his cleats this offseason.

"Partly, you know, yes," Brady said. "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."