The comeback king of the NFL might have one more left in him. After saying he was done with football for good, Tom Brady opened the door for a return this season.
On a recent episode of DeepCut with VicBlends, Brady said he’d consider joining a team for a playoff push if they had a quarterback emergency.
“I’m not opposed to it,” Brady said on the show when presented with the situation.
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The idea of making emergency QBs available became a prominent talking point in the 2023 playoffs when the 49ers lost both Brock Purdy (torn UCL) and Josh Johnson (concussion)– their only active QBs of the game– during the NFC Championship game. Running back Christian McCaffery briefly came in as the emergency QB, before Purdy re-entered the game despite his serious elbow injury. However, Purdy almost exclusively handed the ball off for the rest of the game.
Kyle Shanahan later revealed that the 49ers were planning to ask Philip Rivers to come out of retirement to play in the Super Bowl if they had managed to win that NFC Championship game.
VicBlends mentioned the 49ers as a potential landing spot for Brady in that incredibly specific scenario again, before Brady jumped in and added two more teams that he’s been linked to in the past.
“Patriots, could be. Raiders, could be. You never know”
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Brady did mention one personal aspiration that could get in the way of a longshot comeback, though.
“I don’t know if they’re going to let me if I become an owner of an NFL team.”
That one detail notwithstanding, Brady believes he’d be able to get the job done if needed.
“I’m always going to be in good shape, always going to be able to throw the ball. So to come in for a little bit, like MJ coming back, I don’t know if they’d let me, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”
Brady already made one comeback after retiring. After the 2021 season, he “retired” after the Buccaneers lost in the Divisional Round of the playoffs, but he returned just over one month later to re-join the team. After the 2022 season and a Wild Card loss, Brady announced he was retiring again, this time “for good.”
Maybe Brady really meant, “for good, except if I get the chance to play in one more Super Bowl.”