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Tom Brady had a nice little Sunday news dump last night when he disrupted Selection Sunday by announcing on social media that he had selected to return to the NFL and will play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this year in what will be his 23rd season in the league.
And you know what? It wasn’t really a stunner of a decision at all but it was absolutely the right move for Brady, who will turn 45 in August, to make.
Why?
Because he’s somehow still really freakin good at football and life is short and NFL careers are really short so if you can still play at a high level you should probably do that until you either can’t or until you don’t want to do it anymore.
Brady obviously wants to do it some more and dropped lots of hints the past few weeks that he likely wasn’t done so here we are – the GOAT is back and the Bucs are back to being one of the favorites in the NFC.
Brady had a very good season last year. He threw for a career-high 5,316 yards and also had 43 TDs. Just some bonkers numbers for a fella his age and proof that he is still one of the best QBs in the league.
His last game was vintage Brady as he led the Bucs back from a 24-point second-half deficit in their divisional round playoff game but then could only watch as Matthew Stafford led LA down the field and to a game-winning FG as time expired.
The Rams, of course, went on to win the Super Bowl a few weeks later and you have to think Brady knows that if they had beaten LA, chances are the Bucs would have been representing the NFC at Sofi Stadium last month. That’s something that is hard to walk away from, especially if you’re a wildly competitive guy like Brady who has probably thought about that scenario ever since he walked off the field for what was almost his last time back in January.
While the AFC is stacked with a lot of very good QBs, including now Russell Wilson, the NFC is much more wide open, even if the Rams are the defending champs. Oh, and poor Aaron Rodgers, who fans had a lot of jokes about last night. His path to the Super Bowl just got harder again.
Brady, by the way, handled the whole retirement process really well, too. By announcing it so early in the offseason he took some of the attention off himself and was able to breathe for a few weeks without everyone demanding an answer from him about his future.
With free agency starting this week his return will help the Bucs, who have a lot of work to do, in selling Tampa to players who might want to jump on the Brady experience and try to win a Super Bowl.
Also, Brady’s family seems very happy for him and are supporting his return. So he’s all good there.
Brady’s return is also good for football because he is the GOAT but he is also a villain who is disliked by a lot of fans because of all of his success and it’s always good for a sport to have a very good villain around.
So yeah, Brady made the right decision and I bet he’s already working out this morning to get ready for the upcoming season.
In the immortal words of the GOAT… Let’s goooooooooooooooo!
Quick hits: Fans had lots of jokes about Duke… Tennessee fans livid over No. 3 seed… Texas A&M snubbed… And more.
– Duke is the No. 2 seed in the West and college hoops fans had a lot of jokes about Coach K.
– Tennessee’s men’s team got a No. 3 seed and the internet wasn’t very happy about that.
– Speaking of being angry, Texas A&M didn’t make the tournament and fans were stunned and upset.
– On the women’s side, Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks are the No. 1 overall seed. NC State also got a No. 1 seed… and then got Connecticut in its bracket.
– Here is the men’s bracket and here is the women’s bracket.
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