Getty Images
Could Tom Brady come out of retirement? When he was asked that question on his podcast, he gave something other than an emphatic “no.”
Asked by Jim Gray on his SiriusXM podcast about the possibility of coming out of retirement, Brady said he doesn’t anticipate it happening, but he can’t guarantee he won’t change his mind.
“You know, I’m just gonna take things as they come,” Brady said. “I think that’s the best way to put it and I don’t think anything, you know, you never say never. At the same time I know that I’m very, I feel very good about my decision. I don’t know how I’ll feel six months from now, [inaudible] change, it most likely won’t. But I try to make the best possible decision I can in the moment, which I did this last week. And, again, I think it’s not looking to reverse course, I’m definitely not looking to do that. But in the same time I think you have to be realistic that you never know what challenges there are gonna be in life. Again, I loved playing. I’m looking forward to doing things other than playing.”
Brady saying he doesn’t know how he’ll feel in six months, when NFL teams are in training camp, is reminiscent of what Brett Favre said in an April 2008 interview with David Letterman, shortly after Favre announced his retirement. Favre left the door open just a crack to returning at that point, but at the start of training camp he did in fact return, and the Packers — having decided that Aaron Rodgers was their quarterback of the future — traded him to the Jets. Favre ended up playing a total of three more seasons, one with the Jets and two with the Vikings.
That doesn’t mean Brady is coming back. But he’s not slamming the door shut on the possibility.