Tom Brady Says 'No Retirement in My Future' Despite Buccaneers' Struggles

Tom Brady can't play football forever. But the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback reaffirmed on Thursday that he has no plans to retire anytime soon, even with the Bucs' offense struggling to start the 2022 season.

"I love the sport and I love the teammates and I wanna go do a great job for this team like I always have," he told reporters. "So, no retirement in my future."

It has not been an ideal start for Brady and the Bucs. The team is 3-3 and the offense ranks 21st in yards per game (332) and 20th in points per contest (20.2).

The 45-year-old Brady, meanwhile, has thrown for 1,652 yards, eight touchdowns and one interception, completing 67.2 percent of his passes while taking nine sacks. His play at quarterback, in other words, has hardly been detrimental—he ranks 15th in QBR (52.0) and seventh in quarterback rating (95.1) thus far this season.

Frustrations have been mounting, however, as evidenced by Brady's fiery sideline undressing of his offensive line during Sunday's 20-18 loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers:

When you've won seven Super Bowls in your career and are arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, those sorts of outbursts don't fall on deaf ears.

"Everyone can call it what they want, but I want nothing else from a quarterback than that—than the guy who's wanting to tell us what we need to do and step up," center Robert Hainsey told reporters. "If he was just sitting over there and not get us going and not try to help us—he wouldn't be who he is today. I love that from him. I know we all love that from him. It might look weird on TV, but that's football. That's what you want from great teammates and great leaders, and he's the best there is."

Brady said on his Let's Go! podcast with Jim Gray and Larry Fitzgerald that he was just trying to rally the troops.

"That's what my job is. To try to get us going and to try to rally us. And there's a lot of ways to do it. And sometimes it's some positive encouragement, which you do a lot," he noted. "Sometimes it's, you know, getting on people and trying to raise the level, the sense of urgency, and raising my voice and trying to create a different vibration for the whole offense. And that's [ultimately] what you're trying to do."

Perhaps when Brady loses the motivation to provide a spark for his team he'll decide to hang it up. He clearly isn't at that point just yet.