Updated: Tom Brady is done, officially. The Tampa Bay quarterback put an end to days of speculation on Tuesday by announcing his retirement after 22 years. “This is difficult for me to write, but here it goes: I am not going to make that competitive commitment anymore,” Brady wrote on Instagram, per the AP. “I have loved my NFL career, and now it is time to focus my time and energy on other things that require my attention.” Our story from earlier Tuesday follows:
Tom Brady has spoken publicly for the first time since his impending retirement was reported, and then quickly un-reported. The bottom line? The 44-year-old NFL quarterback still hasn't made a decision about his future. "I'm still going through the process that I said I was going through," he said Monday on the Let's Go! podcast, per NFL.com. "Sometimes it takes some time to really evaluate how you feel, what you want to do and I think when the time is right I'll be ready to make a decision one way or the other." He said his family would play a big role in that eventual decision; he has a 14-year-old son from his relationship with Bridget Moynahan as well as a son, 12, and daughter, 9, with wife Gisele Bündchen, CNN reports.
Brady said he wasn't surprised or bothered by the speculation about his retirement, "but I think for me, it's literally day to day with me. I'm just trying to do the best I can every day, evaluate things as they come, and I'm trying to make a great decision for me and my family." Brady, who's played 22 seasons in the NFL, said that the speculation would not influence his decision (for which he gave no timeline) one way or the other. "I think my motivation for playing football is to win and be successful and maybe there's little parts of motivation that comes from different places or what people may say or think, but I'm mostly motivated from inside and wanting to be the best for my teammates and my coaches and my organizations," he said. (See the original report, and the later denials of that report, here.)
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