Peyton Manning isn't exactly setting up a retirement blueprint for all-time great quarterbacks. "Insurance pitchman and
ESPN+ football programming front man" isn't an avenue that's going to be open to just everyone. But it's interesting to imagine Brady, Brees, Rivers and Roethlisberger in their post-football lives.
The broadcast networks would probably write each one of them a blank check, and I can imagine any of them but Brady behind the microphone. (And who knows, maybe he'd surprise me.) But the trick is, you'd have to find a way to make it worth their while. The four of them together have earned a little less than a
billion dollars in their careers from just their football salaries and bonuses -- which is to say nothing of their off-field endorsement income. They won't
need jobs, and they're not going to sign up to do the No. 4 game in the weekly CBS rotation. You'd have to be talking about a Troy Aikman/Tony Romo-level type of job to entice these guys, and ... well, those jobs are of course taken.
When I covered the Yankees, Derek Jeter used to tell us he wasn't interested in getting into coaching or broadcasting when he was done playing but that he wanted to own a team. That is the path he took. And while it hasn't gone particularly well for him, it leaves open the possibility of other athletes who've made their fortunes going down similar paths. Could Brady and his much richer wife, Gisele Bundchen, end up with enough to buy a majority interest in an NFL team? Would they want to?