Tom Brady clearly still can play at a high level. Brady himself said he wouldn't hang up his cleats until he "sucked" -- and he never reached such a point.
So why, then, did the 45-year-old quarterback announce his NFL retirement Wednesday morning?
It all came down to his family life, according to NFL Media's Ian Rapoport. Brady, reportedly "exhausted" by a trying year that saw the dissolution of his marriage with Gisele Bundchen, just wants to spend more time with his kids.
"I got the sense talking to people who've spoken to Brady over the course of the last two or three weeks that Tom Brady heading back to Tampa was probably not something that was going to happen," Rapoport said during an NFL Network appearance. "I know they wanted him back. Just didn't seem like that was really in the cards for a variety of reasons.
"And then it was like, is he really going to play somewhere else? And by somewhere else, I mean: somewhere besides Florida. His children are now in Florida, in the Miami area. I know he wants to be close to them; that is paramount to him. So, was he really going to go to Las Vegas, to San Francisco, to Tennessee, somewhere else and be away from his kids? That was really the discussion."
Rapoport added: "This is a family thing, not a football thing."
Of course, Brady won't be straying too far from the gridiron.
The future Hall of Famer is set to enter the first year of a lucrative broadcasting contract with FOX Sports, which reportedly was surprised by his decision to retire. FOX will broadcast Super Bowl LVII, but it's unclear whether Brady will make an appearance during the telecast.
