Tom Brady says (possibly as a joke) that he was about to unretire in May
As the first season with Tom Brady in the NFL approaches a conclusion, Brady has suggested it almost didn't.
In a post on Instagram reflecting on 2023, Brady adds this P.S.: "The only downside to 2023 was when I was about to unretire in May and my friends threw a surprise retirement party. Kind of forced my hand."
He might have been joking. If it's a joke, it's not obvious. (It's also not particularly funny.)
Regardless, he said it. Unless and until he says it was a joke, it possibly wasn't. Which then raises the question of which team would have made a run at him in May.
It would have been, if it happened, after free agency and after the draft. It would have been a team that had concerns about its starting-quarterback position at a time when they wouldn't have been many/any options for making things better.
The Raiders make the most sense. He has a deal in place to buy 5-10 percent of the team. (The transaction has still not been approved.) In May, the Raiders were concerned about Jimmy Garoppolo's foot. They could have, at the time, ripped up the contract and moved on, since he had not yet passed a physical. They could have signed Brady — who would have been reunited with Josh McDaniels.
The next step will be for plenty of people to not see it as a joke, and to react accordingly. That's when Brady will surely say he was joking.
Even if he wasn't.
