Some athletes simply don’t share when they’re going to retire before they have to. Some athletes (think Derek Jeter) announce their retirements in advance. As for Tom Brady, he’s not giving a specific retirement date but he gave people his general thought-process on when he’ll retire during his weekly appearance on WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan morning show:
When I suck, I’ll retire. But I don’t plan on sucking for a long time. So hopefully that leads me to being here and there’s no place I’d rather be. I love this game and I love working hard at it. I’ve had a lot of people over the years tell me the things I couldn’t do and I think that’s always been great motivation for me to try to go out there an accomplish things that I think I can do so hopefully I can continue to play at a really high level for a long period of time.
Last year was a statistical down-year for the Patriots franchise quarterback. Brady’s passer rating of 87.3 was his lowest since his 2002 season and his season completion percentage of 60.5% was the worst of his starting career. While those things are alarming for an aging quarterback, there were some extenuating circumstances in 2013. Brady was throwing to a host of rookie receivers, a hobbled Danny Amendola and Julian Edelman. Rob Gronkowski only played in seven games. Things should improve this season (Gronk should be healthier, the receiving corps has had more time to gel with Brady) so it will probably be awhile before Tom Brady decides that he sucks enough to retire.
