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Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady just announced his retirement from the NFL after a legendary 22-year career. 20 of those years came with the New England Patriots, but Brady didn't mention the Patriots or Bill Belichick even once in his lengthy retirement announcement.
While Brady's time with Belichick and the Patriots didn't end on the best terms, this is still a shocking snub given he did have nice things to say after leaving the franchise in 2020. Perhaps Brady plans on honoring his longtime team and coach in a separate announcement, and he could even wind up signing with the team in order to officially retire with them. Still, plenty of people certainly took notice of his decision to not mention New England in this initial message:
Tom Brady really went without mentioning the Patriots once in his retirement post. 🤔
— Matthew Paras (@Matthew_Paras) February 1, 2022
No mention of the Patriots or New England in Brady's retirement announcement (which spanned several other slides). https://t.co/F8drw1NN2S
— Zack Cox (@zm_cox) February 1, 2022
Brady's statement includes zero mention of the #Patriots.
Bizarre to say the least. https://t.co/57jsoMf9CP
— Andrew Callahan (@_AndrewCallahan) February 1, 2022
Brady retires with a 9-part Instagram post that never mentions the Patriots, Belichick or the Krafts. INTERESTING.https://t.co/81P74w9SMt
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) February 1, 2022
Big fixation right now on the fact Brady didn't mention the Patriots in his announcement.
I guess it's worth noting but you probably hold off on grabbing the torches and pitchforks.
He liked it here. He's mentioned that. He LIKED you. OK?
Weirdos.
— Tom E. Curran (@tomecurran) February 1, 2022
There were, of course, some jokes to be had:
I guess Gisele wasn't exaggerating about Brady's history of concussions since he can't remember anything that happened or anyone he met more than two years ago.
— Stephen Douglas (@Stephen_Douglas) February 1, 2022
Gisele: “You’re gonna mention the Pats, right honey?”
Tom: pic.twitter.com/DhGiandjV8
— Elias Schuster (@Schuster_Elias) February 1, 2022
Some even found the Patriots snub endearing:
If you just read this post and saw this picture you would've never known he ever played with the Patriots…GOAT status cemented https://t.co/qADRMNMYFd
— Daman Rangoola (@damanr) February 1, 2022
Tom Brady not mentioning the Patriots at all in his retirement announcement makes me like him even more.
— Nick Shepkowski (@NickShepkowski) February 1, 2022
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Tom Brady is a very calculating person, so one has to think there's at least something to not mentioning anything Patriots related here. Perhaps he's just trying to make one last petty point in his beef. Again, it wouldn't be a surprise if he puts out something separate about his time with New England, but there's no way this was a mistake.
Brady's whole retirement saga has come with a good amount of drama. There was reporting before the Buccaneers were eliminated from the playoffs that he was thinking about hanging up his cleats. Then it came out last weekend that Brady was indeed going to retire, but it got pushback because it didn't come from the man itself but from anonymous sources to top NFL reporters, with ESPN's Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington the first to report the news.
Brady again claimed Monday that he hadn't actually made up his mind yet, only to then put out this long retirement announcement on Tuesday morning. Now we wait to see if there's any follow-up involving the Patriots.
