Most NFL quarterback are long retired by the time they reach 39 years old. Tom Brady still is going strong.
Brady, who’s coming off a season in which he finished second in NFL MVP voting and won his fifth Super Bowl title, will be 40 when the 2017 campaign begins, and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is looking to his New England Patriots counterpart for ideas on how to maintain a high level of play in the latter stages of his career.
“When you’ve reached the level of success that I have — and we have in Green Bay — you continue to have to find ways to reinvent yourself and adapt and change and challenge yourself,” Rodgers said, as transcribed by ProFootballTalk. “And for me, the challenge has become, how do you stay at your best for an extended period of time, and how do you get your body in the best shape possible?
“You look at the Super Bowl. I’ve been a huge fan of Tom Brady for a long time and consider him one of the greatest — if not the greatest — of all time. And he’s doing it at 39. And the way that he takes care of his body is really a model for all quarterbacks — young quarterbacks and quarterbacks kind of in the middle, the second half of their career like myself, who would love to be 38, 39 or 40 and be playing at a high level and be healthy and have their body where they want it at that age.
“That’s kind of the standard and the model for what I want to be.”
Rodgers and Brady are two of just a handful of QBs who can reasonably argue they’re the best in the NFL at their position. Rodgers is a Super Bowl champion, a two-time NFL MVP and is just 33 years old, meaning his career’s theoretically should outlast Brady’s.
Not if Brady has any say in the matter, however, as the Patriots star has said he hopes to play until his mid-40s. Patriots owner Robert Kraft said this week Brady would be willing to play six or seven more seasons in the NFL.
Thumbnail photo via Chris Humphreys/USA TODAY Sports Images
