Most football careers end with a press conference. Tom Brady’s ended twice, then turned into a broadcasting job, a slice of an NFL team and a bronze statue, which is roughly how Tom Brady does everything: past the point where anyone else would have stopped. He was the 199th pick of the 2000 draft. He retired for good on February 1, 2023, a year to the day after his first retirement, with a short video on his own social accounts, and he joked in it that you only get one super emotional retirement essay and he had used his up the year before.
Here is the whole arc, refreshed for 2026: the draft, the rings, the divorce, the second act. Brady is 49 now, and the second act is busy.
San Mateo, Michigan and the backup years
Brady grew up in San Mateo, California, in a family that took its sports seriously, and played both baseball and football at Junípero Serra High School before choosing football. At the University of Michigan he spent his first seasons as a backup before winning the starting job. Even then, his NFL prospects looked modest. My read: the backup years explain more about him than the rings do. A man who once had to fight for a college start never quite stops acting like someone is about to take his job.
Pick 199 and the Patriots dynasty
The New England Patriots took him in the sixth round, 199th overall, in 2000. When Drew Bledsoe was injured in 2001, Brady stepped in and led the team to Super Bowl XXXVI, then added XXXVIII and XXXIX with head coach Bill Belichick. A season-ending knee injury in 2008 looked like a plot twist; he answered with the 2009 NFL Comeback Player of the Year award. Then came Super Bowls XLIX, LI and LIII. Six rings in one building is the kind of number that makes scouts reread their 2000 notes (quietly, with the door closed).
Tampa Bay and ring number seven
After 20 seasons in New England, Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020 under head coach Bruce Arians. In his first season there he won Super Bowl LV, the franchise’s first title since the 2002 season, along with his seventh ring and fifth Super Bowl MVP award. I think this is the chapter that settled the argument for good: the Patriots years could be credited to a system, the Tampa year could only be credited to him.
Gisele, the divorce and a family that kept talking
The old version of this page called Brady and Gisele Bündchen a power couple. That stopped being true in 2022. On October 28, 2022, both posted statements on Instagram: Brady wrote that they had finalized their divorce after 13 years of marriage and had arrived at the decision “amicably and with gratitude for the time we spent together”; Bündchen wrote that “we have grown apart.” Both said they would keep co-parenting their son Benjamin and daughter Vivian. Brady is also father to his eldest son, Jack, with actress Bridget Moynahan.
Bündchen has since built a new family. She and jiu-jitsu instructor Joaquim Valente welcomed a son in February 2025, and according to marriage records reported by People, they married in a small ceremony at their home in Surfside, Florida, on December 3, 2025. What strikes me is how little drama either side has given the tabloids. For a split this famous, the quiet is the headline.
Number 12, retired for real
On June 12, 2024, the Patriots inducted Brady into their Hall of Fame at Gillette Stadium, waiving the usual four-year wait. Robert Kraft retired No. 12 that night and promised a statue. The date was chosen on purpose: June for six titles, the 12th for the jersey. The statue followed on August 8, 2025: a 12-foot bronze Brady, helmet in one hand and fist in the air, in Patriot Place Plaza beside the team Hall of Fame, the first statue the Patriots have built for any player. My opinion: the speech is worth the twenty minutes, and the statue is worth the drive.
The booth and the owner’s box
Brady is now in his third season as Fox Sports’ lead NFL analyst, beside Kevin Burkhardt, under a 10-year deal signed in 2022 and reported at $375 million. He debuted in the NFL booth on September 8, 2024, at Browns vs. Cowboys. In October 2024 the league’s owners approved, 32-0, his purchase of a 5% stake in the Las Vegas Raiders, and in early 2026 owner Mark Davis said general manager John Spytek would run football operations in close collaboration with Brady. Critics keep asking whether one man can call games and help run a team; Brady keeps saying he will do both. I would not bet against him, but I would like to see the Raiders’ calendar.
And the itch never fully goes away. In a March 2026 interview with CNBC, Brady said of a playing return: “I actually have inquired, and they don’t like that idea very much.” An NFL spokesperson said he would have to sell his Raiders stake to play again. Brady’s own verdict: “I’m very happily retired.”
My take
The 2023 version of this story ended with Brady still playing and still married, and both of those turned out to be temporary. What has lasted is the habit that got pick 199 into the building in the first place: he does not leave a room until he has a job in it. He retired twice, and he still found a way back in.
Sources
- Tom Brady on Instagram, September 2026
- New England Patriots: Tom Brady’s Patriots Hall of Fame induction ceremony speech (official YouTube)
- Tom Brady (@tombrady), Instagram
- NFL.com: Tom Brady enshrined into Patriots Hall of Fame, has No. 12 retired
- CBS Boston: Tom Brady’s statue now stands outside Gillette Stadium (August 2025)
- NESN: Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen release statements on finalizing divorce (October 28, 2022)
- Sports Illustrated: Tom Brady approved as Raiders minority owner in unanimous NFL vote
- Fox News: Tom Brady to assist Raiders in finding next head coach
- Fox News: Brady says he inquired about a playing return (CNBC interview, March 2026)
- NBC Sports / PFT: Brady reiterates his 10-year commitment to Fox
- WBRC: Fox Sports announces 2024 NFL broadcast teams, including Brady’s debut
- Fox News: Gisele Bündchen marries Joaquim Valente
- E! News: Gisele Bündchen’s baby with Joaquim Valente
