Depressed Florida Man seeks less time with family
Depressed Florida Man seeks less time with family
Why Tom Brady really unretired
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Local Tampa resident Tom Brady, 44, announced Sunday he’s unretiring from the NFL after a brief 40-day sabbatical.
The legendary quarterback said in a social media post he realized his place was “on the field and not in the stands” and cited “unfinished business” as the reason for returning for a remarkable 23rd season. Brady also ended the post with his patented LFG acronym, because he’s corny AF.
Reactions from around the league were swift and varied.
“SMASH,” was the enthusiastic response from Buccaneers tight end Rob Gronkowski, 32, a long-time Brady teammate, who’s weighing a return to the team against a contract with burgeoning pro-wrestling organization AEW.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, 38, who also recently announced he was returning for his 18th season, said he was unsurprised by the news.
“Like me, Tom is a great competitor. And a critical thinker. He understands that the G.O.A.T. debate isn’t settled yet. Sure, he’s won six more Super Bowls than me, and 23 more playoff games, and four more Super Bowl MVPs, and owns every significant passing record in the history of the league — but I’ve got four regular season MVPs and he’s only got three. And before I was vilified by the woke liberal media over the Covid hoax, there was a significant portion of people who considered me the best ever. So, you know, I’m just looking forward to seeing him on the opposite sideline again. And in terms of our respective legacies, you know, things are still up in the air.”
Brady’s heir apparent as league wunderkind, Patrick Mahomes, 26, of the Kansas City Chiefs, who was married the same day as the announcement, had a more muted response. “This motherfucker” he wrote via text message to an AP source.
Elsewhere, across the city of Buffalo, home to the snake-bitten Bills, ice cream shelves and liquor stores were ransacked by early evening, while calls to suicide prevention hotlines spiked 30,000%.
Prominent coaches around the league also weighed in on the news.
When reached by telephone, Brady’s former Sith Master, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, said simply, “Well, that’s Tawm.”
Brady’s current coach, Bruce Arians, of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said he was “elated” by the decision. “I’m just thrilled, you know, because with Brady, I get to pretend I’m an all-time great coach, whereas without him, I’m pretty much Norv Turner. Just a decent offensive coordinator with a stupid hat.”
Mike Tomlin, decorated coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the franchise that’s been cucked out in high-leverage situations by Brady more than any other, had this to say: “Tom is a tremendous competitor. We acknowledge it. We respect it. And we’ll deal with it in due course as we deem necessary.”
Tomlin also added, “I just want to take this opportunity to make one other thing absolutely, undeniably, unequivocally, crystal clear: Ben Roethlisberger, keep your ass at home. We do not want you back.”
Voices from around the league cited Brady’s hypercompetitive nature and indomitable will as the main reasons he couldn’t stay away from the game.
But Anna McCauley-Fields, a sports psychologist at UCLA, offered a different, starker interpretation of his decision.
“Tom Brady is an amazing competitor, athlete, model, entrepreneur, and brand ambassador, with a beautiful family, all the money you could ever need — and then some — who’s achieved more than anyone ever has in his respective industry. And yet, he can’t step away from the limelight.
“He’d rather continue to play a game — a literal game, which is absurdly violent, needlessly complex, with arbitrarily enforced rules, and which is usually decided at the end by a squirrely white guy you wouldn’t recognize at the grocery store — than grapple with the fact that his life, like all human life, is fragile, finite, and devoid of meaning.
“Even the great Tom Brady is just a heavily mutated monkey, floating on an aerosolized rock in the ever-expanding abyss of nothingness that is our universe. After just forty days at home, he decided he’d rather risk being literally paralyzed by BMF Aaron Donald, than be around his wife, help his kids with their homework, and accept the fact that he’s insignificant.
“He’s not fighting for his country’s livelihood, like our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, and countless other places around the globe. He’s not fighting against systemic racism and discrimination in our schools and workplaces. He’s not waging a seemingly never-ending battle against the novel SARS-CoV-2 pathogen, which has possibly killed over 18 million people and counting.
“He’s battling the fear of obsolescence. Of irrelevance. Of confronting the vapidity and absurdity and sheer ridiculousness of his entire life to this point.
“So instead of facing that — of embracing it — and living out the rest of his immensely privileged life with honor and dignity and respect, he retreats back to the game to appease his ego. A game where he gets the biggest paycheck and gets to play ‘leader of men.’ You know, I actually pity him. I imagine he’s in a tremendous amount of emotional and psychological pain.”
The NFL draft takes place April 28–30.
The Buccaneer’s 2022 schedule should be released in mid-May.