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Tom Brady Says He'd Still ‘Whoop A--‘ in the NFL in 2025

Tom Brady already unretired to return to the NFL once, who says he wouldn’t do it again?

Madison Williams

Tom Brady already unretired to return to the NFL once, who says he wouldn’t do it again?
Tom Brady already unretired to return to the NFL once, who says he wouldn’t do it again? / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Philip Rivers did the unimaginable when he unretired from the NFL to sign with the Colts last week. He even started in their game on Sunday, nearly beating the red-hot Seahawks.

Rivers’s decision to return to the league after nearly five years got the NFL world talking—which other retired players could come back and still play relatively well?

Of course, on the top of many people’s lists was Tom Brady, who has already done the whole “unretiring” thing when he came back in 2020 to lead the Buccaneers. It’s highly unlikely he would do it again, especially at age 48 (he would be 49 next season, making him the oldest NFL player ever). But, he told Shaquille O’Neal and Adam Lefkoe on The Big Podcast this week that if he were to unretire, he’d still be dominating the NFL.

“I’d whoop a-- right now, to be honest,” Brady said. “I could go out there and play. Give me a month, I could go play with anybody.”

Can’t say we’d be surprised—he is a seven-time Super Bowl champion, for crying out loud.

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The retired quarterback explained he’s kept his body healthy and ready to go. The issue is, he doesn’t want to commit to a whole season. Lefkoe asked Brady if he would consider just playing in the “finals,” so the postseason, for a team, and that sounded more ideal for him.

“I took care of my body great. I can do it all. What I wouldn’t want to do is make the commitment to play. ... It takes a lot of training, and I don’t want to do that anymore.”

It sounds like Brady will stay in the Fox booth for the foreseeable future.

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Madison Williams
MADISON WILLIAMS

Madison Williams is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated, where she specializes in tennis but covers a wide range of sports from a national perspective. Before joining SI in 2022, Williams worked at The Sporting News. Having graduated from Augustana College, she completed a master’s in sports media at Northwestern University. She is a dog mom and an avid reader.

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