Tom vs. Time isn’t being decided just yet.
Tom Brady again asserted he will be back next year, after a report surfaced that Sunday’s Super Bowl LII could be the finale for perhaps the greatest football player of all time.
“You’re gonna see me playing football next year,” the 40-year-old Patriots superstar told Westwood One before trying to win his sixth Super Bowl. “I don’t envision not playing. You’re at the end of the race, but you’ve got your biggest mountain to climb right at the end. Hopefully all the lessons we’ve learned have allowed us to be at our very best for this moment and that’s what it’s going to take and that’s what we’re prepared for and that’s what I go out and expect our team to do.”
Earlier in the day, Patriots Nation had its antenna raised after ESPN reporter Dianna Russini reported that “many in the league have been hearing” Brady and head coach Bill Belichick could say goodbye to the league after the game. New England fans started shouting, “Fake news!” and Russini backed down from her own report, saying she was not clear enough that she was simply passing along league whispers yet not reporting it independently.
“I did not word this carefully enough, ESPN is not reporting or even suggesting this is going to happen,” Russini said on Twitter. “I was watching [NFL Countdown] and our insiders respond to the unsubstantiated chatter.”
The chatter had been started in early January, when ESPN released its bombshell account that detailed the chill between Brady and Belichick, suggesting this could be the final season of their dynasty. If it is, it’s not the last season of Brady.