2023 NFL news: Tom Brady retires, loss to Cowboys in playoffs was his final game

Where were you when Tom Brady announced his retirement from the NFL? To be clear, I am asking when he retired for the first time. We all remember a year ago when the NFL’s All-Time GOAT called it a career and then called an about face what felt like five minutes later. While that is true there was a window in time last offseason when it appeared like Brady would be done, and in that window we talked about how his departure would be a good thing for the Dallas Cowboys.

Our thought process at the time was that Dallas had a chance to be one of the top teams in the NFC and that operating without Tom Brady would remove the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from that conversation. Obviously Brady returned, the Bucs won the NFC South with a record below .500, and fate sent the Cowboys down to Tampa Bay for a Wild Card Round matchup.

Thankfully the Cowboys won because nobody gets to 8-0 in their career against the Cowboys! Unfortunately that was the last win of the season for Dallas but it was sweet in that they finally got to Tom Brady, won a road playoff game, did it in their navy jerseys, while on grass, so on and so forth.

It turns out that was the last game that Tom Brady played in the NFL.

Tom Brady has announced his retirement (apparently for real this time) from the NFL

On Wednesday morning, the GOAT did his best Jason Witten impersonation by announcing his retirement for the second time. Tom Brady seems to have officially walked away from the National Football League.

It is fun to joke about how the Cowboys beat Brady in his last game ever, but it only brought the career record for Brady to 7-1 against America’s Team. Dallas may have gotten the last literal laugh, but all of the accomplishments that make him the GOAT have all come in the drought that Dallas has experienced relative to Super Bowls, NFC Championship Game appearances, and all that jazz.

In all seriousness, assuming this retirement sticks, this is a big deal for the NFL. The Buccaneers may have been a questionable playoff team, but without Brady they are significantly worse. Odds are that they take a serious step backwards in 2023.

While it feels like we might be rid of seeing Tom Brady as Dallas Cowboys fans, that ultimately remains to be seen. Remember that Brady had worked out a deal with FOX even after returning last year to eventually serve as the top color analyst on their broadcasts. The number one FOX crew (which currently features Greg Olsen in what would be Brady’s spot) calls a lot of Dallas Cowboys games in a given year so we could actually begin to see more of him than we ever have. All of that remains to be seen of course, it will be interesting to see if FOX uses Brady in this year’s Super Bowl next weekend.

While Twitter was talking about Tom Brady, somebody noted that he will one day share a Hall of Fame class with J.J. Watt who is also retiring. Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram was asked about Tyron Smith being a part of that group and he noted that Smith is “coming back” so we will see what happens there.