Report: Tom Brady to Announce His Retirement

ESPN’s Jeff Darlington and Adam Schefter report legendary quarterback and longtime Jets nemesis Tom Brady will announce his retirement after 22 NFL seasons.

Brady will go down as the greatest to ever play the quarterback position. He has seven Super Bowls and almost every relevant career passing record in the NFL.

His legacy will surely be discussed in the days and weeks ahead, and I’ll leave that to others. A player like this retiring is the type of news that draws the attention of the entire league, the football media, the sports media, and beyond.

For two decades, Brady was what the Jets measured themselves against. Far more often than not, they fell short. Few players have ever tormented a single team the way Brady tormented the Jets during his career. That continued right through the final moments of his career. In his second to last career regular season game in late December, Brady engineered a 93 yard touchdown drive in the final moments of the fourth quarter to defeat the Jets.

Brady’s greatness made it extra special in the few moments the Jets were able to top him, most notably and memorably in the 2010 AFC Divisional Playoffs.

When such an iconic player spends the majority of his career playing for a division rival, he certainly doesn’t endear himself to a fanbase. Brady was regularly one of the most hated players by Jets fans. Hopefully when you were rooting against him, you found time to appreciate his greatness because it isn’t often in football or any field you get to see somebody operate at such a high level for such a long time.

I’m sure Jets fans certainly will be happy the team doesn’t have to compete against Tom Brady anybody, which in many ways is the ultimate compliment. Hopefully in his next endeavor he goes a little bit easier on our team.