Tom,
Before I get started, I want to wish you congratulations on an incredible career. You are truly the GOAT, and we may never see a story like yours in the NFL ever again.
You played in just under half of the Super Bowls since I’ve been alive, which is just bonkers. 10 trips to the Big Game in 23 years. Unbelievable.
And you did it all after being drafted in the sixth round. A general afterthought and a career backup at best.
But my god were you easy to hate. You always won, you never seemed to age, and you lived the life many people would trade everything to live.
Unfortunately, winners are easy to hate.
Habitual winners like yourself make sports boring, because we can always count on you to make deep playoff runs, and there isn’t anything exciting about watching you win over and over and over again.
However, that’s part of greatness – winning so much that anyone who isn’t a fan of your team grows to despise you. Winning so much that your fans become an insufferable cult.
Seven championships. Nearly 90,000 passing yards. 649 touchdowns. A career .769 winning percentage in your starts.
It’s no wonder everyone outside of Boston hated you. They knew that their team had a ¾ chance of losing to you before a ball was even snapped.
And it’s no wonder New England (and later, Tampa) loved you. You just won everything. MVPs. Conference championships. Super Bowls. Everything.
Now, I could mention that you probably should have stayed retired last year, that the plane that was your career crash landed, and that it maybe resulted in the collapse of your perfect life outside the game, but I won’t go there. You’ve been through enough already.
I also won’t talk about how bad your last game looked. Hopefully, we’ll just forget about that ugly loss to Dallas. They made an old man throw the ball 66 times!?
I, among many others, hated you, but damn did I respect you and your career. Not only that, but I respect your business acumen as well.
You leveraged your success into countless odd marketing and brand initiatives that somehow worked! You wrote books, appeared in movies, and provided voices for TV shows.
AND the TB12 Method!? What the hell!? How did you get that to catch on? I get that overzealous middle-aged men are always looking for ways to reverse-age, but c’mon. Ridiculous.
And you capped it all off by making a whole-ass media conglomerate wait on you hand-and-foot. $375 million to analyze football on television and have conversations you were probably going to have anyway!? Genius! You’re going to make more with FOX than you did your entire playing career. That’s almost unbelievable.
But it’s all greatness. Your greatness.
However, it was time. That Dallas game was pretty sad. This Buccaneers season was pretty sad. Your personal life was pretty sad. You needed to go.
Your retirement marks the end of the quarterback generation of my childhood: Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers, and you, are all out of the league. (Rodgers might as well be retired as well)
Tom: You played so long that the next group of signal callers that came in after yours is on its way out. Russell Wilson, Matt Stafford, Matt Ryan, and more, were all up-and-coming quarterbacks during your reign. This year, they all themselves looked overcome by Father Time. Only, they’re all ten years younger than you.
Being great for as long as you were was frustrating to witness, but it was damn impressive.
But as you retire, the newest generation of quarterbacks is now on top of the pile. We have Mahomes, Burrow, Herbert, Allen, and more in the league today. Unfortunately, you just weren’t the best anymore, plain and simple.
While it’s clearly time for you to move on, I’ll never forget how hard I rooted against you in all those playoff games. How bad I wanted anyone but you to win. But you won everything anyway, you greedy bastard. I bet your fingers are heavy from the weight of those rings.
Congratulations on your retirement, Tom. I look forward to angrily yelling at the TV every time I see you behind the camera for the next decade-plus.
Follow Nick Hedges on Twitter @nicktrimshedges or Instagram @nicktrimshedges