Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady said Wednesday that he felt pressure to end his 40-day retirement because of free agency and the key reasons for his indecision stemmed from family commitments. Is there a potential Tom Brady retirement after this season?

“At this stage, it’s like 55% yes and 45% no,” Brady said in a roundtable. That aired on TNT following Capital One’s The Match golf outing with Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. “It’s not 100-0. That’s just the reality. It’s not that I’m not 100% committed, it’s just as soon as I make the commitment to do it, it’s like, ‘Ugh. All right, here we go.’ It’s like running a marathon. You can’t decide two weeks before the marathon, ‘Hey, I’m going to start running.’ We got right to free agency. I felt some pressure to do it and talked to the team and organization. It all worked out.”
During the discussion, Brady was asked whether he had been ready to retire.

“Partly, you know, yes,” said Brady, who will turn 45 in August. “And I think when you’re their [Mahomes’ and Allen’s] age, if you were to ask me, ‘Are you going to play football next year?’ I would say there’s a 100% chance I’m playing. And I think as I’ve gotten older, that’s changed because I have other responsibilities.

News Update for Tom Brady Retirement

“So the responsibilities are many people taking care of me and things that I have off the field that are really important to me like my family, my kids; my wife’s done an amazing job of that. That’s a big commitment from her, so it’s harder when you get older. I don’t even think they know what’s coming. Aaron [Rodgers] knows these things because your life gets bigger as we all do, our life gets more full — there’s more responsibilities.”

Brady is set to become a free agent after the 2022 season. He has not spoken about his future beyond the 2022 season.