Tom Brady Is so Very, Utterly, Painfully Bored Without NFL Football

Professional baseball’s all-time leader in hits (counting his statistics from Japan), Ichiro Suzuki played parts of 19 seasons in Major League Baseball before retiring in 2019 as a member of the team that drafted him, the Seattle Mariners. Following his retirement, Suzuki was unable, or unwilling, to separate himself from pro baseball and has spent the “past several years as a special assistant to the chairman for the Mariners and regularly is in uniform and working with players or fielding balls during batting practice,” according to ESPN.

Suzuki, now 49 and a surefire Hall-of-Famer, retired from MLB but couldn’t move on. Based on the unnecessary media tour that another all-time great in another sport took yesterday, it sure seems like Tom Brady is having a similar problem leaving NFL football behind. After Brady — who retired from the NFL for the second time at the start of February prior to the release of 80 For Brady and the Super Bowl — spoke to Sports Illustrated early on Thursday and told the publication he was “certain” he was retired from the NFL for good, the 45-year-old headed to SportsCenter to give ESPN some sound bites.

No, Tom Brady Won’t Coach in the NFL After He Retires, Whenever That Is

The 45-year-old discussed the possibility with Jim Gray on the “Let’s Go!” podcast

Brady, who is taking a miniscule ownership stake in the Raiders, told ESPN he’s “really looking forward to not getting hit anymore” but wants “to be involved in the NFL for the next 45 years of my life if I last that long.”

“The game’s in great hands,” he said. “It’s time for other guys to do it. Now I’m just a retired NFL player looking forward to watching all these guys.”

Brady, despite no longer playing in the NFL, can’t stop himself from talking playing in the NFL and seems incredbily bored with life after football. With the majority of NFL teams now holding OTAs and the kickoff of training camp in July beginning to appear on the horizon, Brady is likely starting to realize that pro football is going to go on without him for the first time in more than two decades — and he doesn’t like it.

So, he keeps talking about his “certain” retirement and serving up football-related fodder for talking heads to digest. For example, Brady took time during his appearance on ESPN to downplay the obvious dysfunction that existed between himself and Bill Belichick prior to his departure from the New England Patriots.

“He very much trusted what I was out there doing in the field, and it went both ways,” he said. “Ultimately our success was because so many people in the organization. Were there times where you know it wasn’t always eye to eye? Very few and far between, actually. I still envision our relationship as positive and always will.”

Not buying it. What does ring true? Tom Brady can’t stop talking about football because he’s massively bored without it.