National Football League

Tom Brady's age stopped mattering long ago

Updated Jun. 10, 2022 3:26 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Tom Brady’s age started becoming a topic, in that kind of wink-wink-nudge-nudge way that’s used to suggest a pro football player might not have long left in his career, in June.

June 14, to be precise … of 2011.

The first mention I was able to find that seriously spoke of the end of the road potentially approaching for Brady came on that very date, a Bleacher Report story that took a stab at predicting what the remainder of the then-33-year-old’s career might look like.

It was a well-reasoned piece that looked closely at a number of factors and identified the end of his deal at the time with the New England Patriots as being a critical juncture.

"After that, all bets are off," the article read. "Brady will be 37 (38 by the 2015 season) and more banged up, and history doesn't smile upon quarterbacks of that age. He could eke out another productive year, like Kurt Warner did at 38 in 2009, but the (John) Elways and Brett Favres are never the norm to base judgment on."

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Obviously, time has shown virtually every crystal-ball prediction of the story, and many others like it, to be wildly wide of the mark, but the writer shouldn’t feel bad. No one thought a QB could still excel in the NFL deep into his 40s, because no one had achieved it and few wanted to try. The idea was considered faintly preposterous.

Similarly, no one thought the concept of a QB winning seven Super Bowls was anything short of absurd. Brady has made fools out of all of us at some point. Because if you’re claiming you’ve long envisioned this – a 2022 season approaching in which he’s the starter for the Super Bowl second-favorite Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+750 with FOX Bet) – you’re being economical with the truth.

We’ve gotten this far without mentioning Brady’s current age because there comes a point in everyone’s life when it becomes kind of rude to do so, but given that this column is partly about how old he is, it's unavoidable now. He’s 44, soon to be 45, which hopefully Tom won’t mind us pointing out, given how it's history-making and all.

Yet the most interesting part of this might be that the longer Brady plays, and the older he gets, the less it becomes a talking point. He has, quite simply, worn down the doubters.

There were more people questioning whether he could still be effective before his age-40 season than there are before his age-45 campaign.

The timeline of public opinion has gone something like this:

Ages 39-41: "The decline is coming. Look at football history. He can’t play for much longer at this level. Er, can he?"

Ages 42-43: "Whoa, this is extraordinary, how’s he so good? Aren’t QBs his age supposed to be creaking their way around a golf course somewhere?"

Now: "Yep (shrug), it’s Brady being Brady. Still one of the best in the business at 44. No big deal."

Brady spoke to reporters in Tampa on Thursday and there were all kinds of things up for discussion. He was asked about his relationship with former head coach Bruce Arians, and strongly denied that there was any rift between the pair, who collaborated on the team’s Super Bowl LV triumph.

He was quizzed about whether Rob Gronkowski will come back to the team, and Brady said that any persuasive efforts from his end would be conducted gently, with no hard sell.

He spoke of the process that tilted his mind back toward football after initially retiring after the end of last season, only to dramatically reverse course weeks later, and even briefly addressed rumors that he’d received an offer from the Miami Dolphins that reportedly included a front office position.

But there were no questions about his age, because that well has been exhausted. Indeed, the only mention of longevity, somewhat surprisingly, came from Brady himself.

"It's very easy when you're 25 to know what you want to do next year," Brady said. "It's very challenging when you're 43 or 44 because there's other things that are pressing and other things that are really important in your life, like your kids and your wife and different relationships, things that have always taken a back seat to football.

"Thankfully for good reasons, there's parts where I'm happy I'm not 25 and there's other parts where I wish I felt like I was like a little more like 25, but I have a very complex, tricky life in different aspects - I'm just trying to navigate it the best way I can."

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Of course, it is incredible and confounding that a 45-year-old will be taking snaps once Week 1 begins and that everyone will be expecting him to shine. It’s not a sign of things to come, or a feat that starts a trend. It’s the outlier of all outliers, but we are already so used to it that we’re no longer as confounded as we should be.

As always, there are plenty of things to talk about when it comes to Brady. He’s on a team that looks like a contender. He’s got offensive weapons he likes, with incoming wide receiver Russell Gage drawing high praise and Brady personally intervening to help keep Leonard Fournette. He's even solidified plans to join FOX Sports and begin calling games once his playing days are over.

It’s Brady, so there is news, and discussion of that news, second-guessing, argument and all the other good stuff that keeps us entertained during the long offseason months.

But as for the bit about him being long in the tooth, it’s a lost topic now.

Tom Brady is old? That’s old news.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.