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NFL, former teammates react to Tom Brady retirement report: 'Is he retiring or not?'

chris cwik
Staff writer
·4 min read
210
Tom Brady with the Bucs.
Tom Brady has not made an announcement about his rumored retirement. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady is retiring ... actually, maybe he's not. Football fans at first paid tribute as reports poured in that Brady was walking away from the NFL after 22 seasons.

Then, things got weird.

Brady's agent set out a message making it clear Brady made no announcement about his status. Multiple Buccaneers writers then confirmed Brady did not inform the team of any decision. It was later reported Brady called the Bucs on Saturday and said he was not close to making a decision.

Even Tom Brady Sr. got involved.

It all made for an extremely confusing afternoon.

If there's an upside here, it's that there's a full timeline of that confusion readily available on Twitter. Here's how it all went down:

NFL, former teammates react to Tom Brady's reported retirement

Shortly after the news broke, three of Brady's best offensive weapons — Julian Edelman, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin — responded with earnest messages honoring Brady.

Chris Godwin deleted a tweet following rumors of Tom Brady's retirement. (Screengrab via @CGtwelve_ on Twitter)
Chris Godwin deleted a tweet following rumors of Tom Brady's retirement. (Screengrab via @CGtwelve_ on Twitter)
Mike Evans deleted a tweet thanking Tom Brady. (Screengrab via @MikeEvans13_ on Twitter)
Mike Evans deleted a tweet thanking Tom Brady. (Screengrab via @MikeEvans13_ on Twitter)

Evans later deleted his tweet.

The NFL account sent out two tweets thanking Brady for his contributions.

Brady's company TB12 released a tweet listing off Brady's accomplishments and thanking him.

TB12 put out a tweet listing off Tom Brady's accomplishments. The tweet was eventually deleted. (Screengrab via @TB12sports on Twitter)
TB12 put out a tweet listing off Tom Brady's accomplishments. The tweet was eventually deleted. (Screengrab via @TB12sports on Twitter)

That tweet was later deleted after the narrative started to shift.

Tom Brady has not announced retirement yet

Once reports emerged suggesting Brady has yet to make a decision, Twitter responded with disbelief and humor.

Former NFL quarterbacks Matt Cassel, Brady Quinn and Ryan Leaf all got involved.

Tom Brady coming back out of spite?

Eventually, the conversation evolved into tweets wondering if Brady would return to the NFL out of spite.

Brady has yet to make an announcement about his future, meaning we get to have this full experience all over again in a few weeks. So, uh, get excited — or delete your Twitter account — in anticipation of that.