Tom Brady Wished He Was Playing At Super Bowl LVI Following Retirement

Tom Brady is missing football.

Old Habits Die Hard

On Saturday, the former football quarterback, 44, expressed his Super Bowl envy on social media. When wife Gisele Bündchen posted a selfie, asking followers, “Who’s working this weekend?”

Brady commented, “I wish I was ‼️ ❤️”

The seven-time Super Bowl champ also shared a screenshot of his phone’s lock screen on Sunday, which showed a “time-sensitive” reminder for Super Bowl LVI.

Brady added a note on the image: “Sh*t…”

Retiring From Football After Over Two Decades

After playing for 22 seasons, Brady announced his retirement from the NFL earlier this month.

“This is difficult for me to write, but here it goes: I am not going to make that competitive commitment anymore. I have loved my NFL career, and now it is time to focus my time and energy on other things that require my attention,” he wrote on an Instagram post.

“I am so proud of what we have achieved. My teammates, coaches, fellow competitors, and fans deserve 100% of me, but right now, it’s best I leave the field of play to the next generation of dedicated and committed athletes,” the former athlete continued.

“The future is exciting,” he noted, adding, “I am going to take it day by day. I know for sure I want to spend a lot of time giving to others and trying to enrich people’s lives, just as so many have done for me.”

Seven Super Bowl Wins

In 2000, Brady was drafted by the New England Patriots, where he spent the first 20 seasons of his career and won six Super Bowls. He then played with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the final two seasons in the NFL, winning his seventh Super Bowl victory in 2021.

Brady said in the past he’s aiming to play until he’s 45 or maybe even longer, but when the Buccaneers lost in the divisional round of the playoffs, he decided to retire.

“I’m really ultimate. You know, my enjoyment comes from not a recognition of what I’ve accomplished as a player in the league,” he said on the January 25 episode of his “Let’s Go!” podcast. “My enjoyment comes from the competition more so than anything.”

Brady explained, “It’s just when you’re 44, I guess you get asked about that a lot. You know, a lot of people thought I was done playing football in 2015. You know, a lot of people in 2016 said you’re done. A lot of people in 2018 thought… When I left the Patriots they said you’re done, you know.”

Focusing On His Family

In last week’s episode, Brady admitted that a huge part of his retirement decision was because he was “missing out on other aspects of my life.”

“It’s certainly not that I can’t do that, and it’s certainly not that I can’t play or continue to play, but I think there’s an important choice for me to make, you know, and I think the choice is, everything certainly comes at a cost and the cost is what am I missing out on other aspects of my life and things that are, as you get older, you experience things that are outside of the sport that demand attention and energy that football has always gotten, and it’s time for me to commit to those types of things,” he said.

A lot of things have come up over the years in the last 10 years of my life as I got closer to this decision this last week,” Brady continued. “In the end felt like it was just the right time to do it.”

Missing ‘A Lot Of Things’

He also compared himself to “Kentucky Derby” when playing football.

“You know, it’s just the nature of football, and if you want to be good at it, you got to commit all the time and energy you can to do it. I always say playing football during the season. I’m like Kentucky Derby a lot,” he shared. “So I look at those horses, and they had the blinders on and you literally are just running full speed as fast as you can, you know, for basically the entire season and there’s no time to look right or left, and there’s a lot of things that are happening in your life that you don’t look right or left, you’re still looking straight ahead that you miss something.”