It would be the perfect ending, the stuff movies are made of.
Seventeen years after announcing himself to the NFL by defeating the then-St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, Tom Brady has a chance to win his sixth Lombardi Trophy against the Los Angeles Rams.
A win would give the 41-year-old the most Super Bowl titles by any player and would present perhaps the perfect opportunity to walk away from the NFL before his skills actually begin to decline.
Brady has said he wants to play until he’s 45 years old, but one can’t help but see the poetry in Brady’s career beginning and ending with Super Bowl wins over the Rams, once as a heavy underdog and once as the leader of the NFL’s most historic dynasty.
As Super Bowl LIII draws closer, people are bound to wonder if Brady will hang up his helmet should the Patriots defeat the Rams, but Peter King doesn’t see it.
“I just can’t see it,” King told NBC’s Mike Florio. “Again, I don’t know anything. I don’t really know Brady that well, I know him pretty well, but he’s never even hinted at that to me and I’ve never heard him hint that to anybody. The fact is, he loves — Mike, you would say there’s no better way to walk off. Do a Jermone Bettis. Do a John Elway. But he just isn’t really wired like that. He likes every part of his job. He’s going to love going to see Tom House in the spring in Los Angeles to work on throwing mechanics. He just absolutely loves it. He’s told me five times over the years that, ‘there’s nothing that I like doing better than playing football.’
“He told me this a couple of years ago: “Why would I voluntarily leave the game if I’m still able to play?’ So, I just don’t see him walking away.”
King, in fact, only sees one scenario in which Brady finally hangs it up.
“I think he’ll walk away when — or when Bill Belichick goes and gets Tommy Touchdown from Cal-Lutheran and Brady then has an option. Is he going to go play one year for somebody? Or is he just going to retire? So I think it’s more likely going to be that, Mike. That he will confront the end of his career and he’ll decide what to do, but I just think it’s still a couple of years away at least.”
Patriots haters everywhere just shuddered.
