My father is the first person I know who has said he wants Brady to retire. I actually find his reasoning pretty persuasive:
He thinks Brady still has something, maybe even a lot, left. But he thinks this team, with all the aging members and not a great cap situation, doesn’t and that as a result there’s almost nothing Brady can gain from playing another year or two with or without the Patriots.
With the Pats, he will probably be playing less effectively as a result of age and a crappy core around him. Without them, at best he probably plays on a decent team in a totally new system ... as he gets older.
Either way, he would almost certainly diminish his legacy somewhat.
Regarding whether he would actually retire, my dad was less confident. He mentioned the Tom Brady Sr. comments about it ending badly and thinks that these guys never know when to quit – and if he had, probably would have hung them up after last year, going out on top like Gronk. To that point, and as my wife reminded me, Bobby Orr played two shitty seasons with the Blackhawks after he left the Bruins.
I’m not sure I agree with my father but it def. makes me think about whether they can put a good team around Brady. As I look at it, it looks hard:
- Their cap situation isn’t great as I understand it (esp. if Brady wants a big deal)
- Andrews may be done
- There are no great TEs on the horizon
- Edelman is getting older, the WR corps is thin and Brady historically has some trouble with new WRs coming into the mix
- The linebackers are losing KVN and Hightower is getting old and earning too much money
- DMac, JMac, Chung and Harmon are all getting older and probably earning too much money too and might retire rather than take less
Maybe someone can outline a path to them building one last great team. And I’d be delighted to be wrong if Brady were to return and bring the team another ring. But ... it just seems like they have a
lot of holes to fill. And that doesn’t seem to bode well for Brady either way.