Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady announced this morning that he is retiring from the NFL for a second time, this time “for good.” Our political class could take a lesson.
The fact that Brady has to quell doubts about whether he really means it this time, after his first retirement didn’t stick, suggests how hard it was for him to finally lay down the football, even for a man who would be 46 next season. Two years removed from his (presumably) final Super Bowl win, Brady is not the quarterback he once was (statistically, he averaged fewer than ten yards per completion for the first time in his career, and had a career-low in the percentage of his passes that went for touchdowns), but if he is no longer the best in the game, he can still play at an elite level. He led the Bucs from behind in the fourth quarter four times in 2022 and had five game-winning drives out of the team’s eight wins. He led the league in pass attempts and completions, suggesting how heavily the team relied on him, and completed 66.8 percent of his passes with the lowest rate of sacks in the league. With the right team around him, it would not be that hard to picture Brady winning another Super Bowl had he come back next year.
But he is, finally it seems, walking away before the tank is completely empty. There are good reasons to do so. The risk of life-altering injury is always present in the NFL. Brady has nothing left to prove. And a few months after his divorce, he’s at an age when he’s past due to focus on his family life instead of just burying himself in playbooks to get away from trouble at home.
Our political landscape is littered with old folks who can still play the game with barely enough competence that their teams can still sometimes carry them to victory, but who really need to take Brady’s example and go out with some dignity left. Nancy Pelosi, who turns 83 in March, finally stepped down from leadership but still hasn’t gone home to San Francisco. Joe Biden intends to run for president again at 81, and so does Donald Trump at 78. Chuck Grassley, who turns 90 in September, is remarkably vigorous for his age, but he just got reelected to a six-year term in the Senate. Dianne Feinstein, who turns 90 in June, has people in her own party lining up to challenge her, but won’t decide if she’s running again in 2024. Some of these folks, unfortunately, will leave the field only when carted off against their will.