Tom Brady's Final Gift to Patriots: Another 'Pass'?
Tom Brady's NFL playing career ended as it began: guiding the New England Patriots to victory in the first days of February.
Leave it to Brady to find a way to "win" his retirement, skeptical as the football world may be about his Wednesday reveal's lasting power. One could easily argue he's chasing Michael Jordan in terms of announced retirements but this latest does seem to carry a sense of finality, particularly when Brady posted a lengthy montage of photos taken with teammates and rivals alike on his Instagram story.
While some legends of the game occasionally get one last bow, one last gig in their most doting venue ... Charles Woodson in Oakland, for example ... it appears the closest Brady will come to Gillette Stadium's playing surface is if Fox Sports does a game there if/when he finally picks up their microphone.
That's the way it should be.
The only time Brady should be a Patriot is if owner Robert Kraft allows him to officially retire as a member of the organization.
Analyzing Brady's final tour with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, one that only reached the playoffs due to divisional caveats, is a complicated endeavor: he very much looked like a 45-year-old quarterback at the end of his wits at several points this season and yet was still posting numbers that passers 20 years his junior would kill to have. His time in Tampa Bay was likely over but there's surprisingly no shortage of suitors.
The San Francisco 49ers, Brady's beloved childhood team, found ways to win with Brock "Mr. Irrelevant" Purdy. Imagine what they could've done with even a half-strength Brady? Their former Bay Area rivals, the Las Vegas Raiders, would've been an ironic yet appropriate closer considering Brady derailed the Oakland timeline with a simple tuck.
Then, there was the Patriots.
Everything else in Brady's career seemingly worked played to his flair for the dramatics. Why should a Foxboro coda been any different? The stage seemed perfectly set: a New England team where the current heir to the Brady throne, Mac Jones, struggled to gain any consistency. It was a teamed armed with a strong defense, progressively improving run game, and, of course, a head coach closing in on an NFL record that seemed unbreakable two decades ago (all-time coaching wins in his case).
Fantasy football played out in the imaginations of both New England fans and alumni alike, as the idea of a Brady return only grew sweeter when Jones and the current offense failed to seize its moment when granted control of a playoff destiny in Week 18. Where better to bookend his legendary career than New England, the site that started it all, the land of his immaculate opportunity?
Now, however, it is complete.
Brady's championship endeavors ... bringing six Super Bowls to historically downtrodden New England ... brought about a fickle, if not tolerable toll: a spotlight powered by the unforgivable court of public opinion is going to follow the Patriots' franchise indefinitely. Any move the Patriots make will be compared to the way Brady handled it, a sense of "What Would Brady Do?" hovering over every snap.
Simply put, the Patriots need their next hours, the next steps in the post-Brady process, to pass by and play out as peacefully as possible. Bringing back a soon-to-be 46-year-old would've served as a damning declaration to the young group of potential that the Patriots have assembled. It would've been a gesture of instant gratification, a desperate attempt to mine nostalgia that the entertainment industry has turned into its entire modus operandi. That unwanted attention was the last thing the Patriots, a team desperate to stay afloat in an evolving AFC East, needed as it moved forward.
Brady's contributions to New England's past will not be soon forgotten. His favor for the future, perhaps inadvertent, can set the franchise up for its next wave of success.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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