Tom Brady has famously said that he wants to play until he’s 45. That he was able to complete 60.8% of his passes for 4,057 yards, 24 touchdowns, and eight interceptions when his receiver corps was basically Julian Edelman and the Pips, and that he was able to do so at age 42, tells you that there’s still something left in the tank. New England’s 20-13 loss to the Titans in the wild-card round on Saturday represents the first time since 2010 the Patriots were bounced out of the playoffs in their first postseason game, and it feels like the end of that same decade could well be the end of Brady’s 20-year tenure with the team.
It’s worth wondering if Bill Belichick, who stays in tune with the college game as well as any NFL head coach, would be interested in getting his hands on a Jalen Hurts-style player and redefining his offense, especially with offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels almost certainly on the way out to accept his own head coaching position elsewhere. And, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that Brady is emotionally tied to the Patriots beyond this season. The 2019 team experienced offensive failures in both coaching and execution all season, and while enough of those were Brady’s responsibility, Brady’s also smart enough to watch the rest of the NFL and see how good other quarterbacks have it these days, while he’s been forced to deal with less in recent times.
“I don’t want to get too much into the future and stuff,” Brady said after the game, which essentially ended for the Patriots when he threw a pick-six to ex-Patriots cornerback Logan Ryan. “I mean, this team has fought hard. We battled every day, we tried to get better, we worked hard to improve and I was proud to be a part of this team. Not only this year, but every year. Again, I just don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m not going to predict it. No one needs to make choices at this point. I love playing football, I love playing for this team. I’ve loved playing for this team for two decades and winning a lot of games. And again, I don’t know what it looks like moving forward, so we’ll just take it day-by-day.”
Perhaps 2019 was the wake-up call both Brady and Belichick needed to tell them that the most successful coach/quarterback relationship in NFL history is about to come to an end. If that’s the case, here are the best landing spots for the greatest quarterback in NFL history.
Raiders | Bears | Buccaneers | Chargers | Colts