Bucs' Tom Brady on playing until 50: 'Even for me, that’s a long time'

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Tom Brady is showing no signs of slowing down but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback seemed to dismiss general manager Jason Licht’s previous comments about having him play until age 50.

Licht said last month during an appearance on "The Rich Eisen Show" that he’s told Brady in conversations they’ve had that the Bucs will have him for as long as he’s willing to play. 

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"I told him if he wants to play until he’s 50, and he’s still playing and he feels like he can still play, he can play until he’s 50." 

Brady responded to Licht’s comments in an interview with USA Today last week, saying his plan was always to play until 45. 

"50? That’s a long time. Even for me, that’s a long time," he said. "I’ve always said 45 was the age that I wanted to reach and that was my goal. This year I’ll be 44, so next year I’ll be 45. I got a two-year contract."

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"I’m going to be able to obviously play this year and God forbid anything happens but play next year and then see what happens after that. If I still want to keep playing, I might be able to do that. And if that’s enough, then that would be enough," he added.

The 2020 season was big for Brady in many ways. After playing 20 seasons with the New England Patriots, Brady proved that he was more than a system quarterback and joined an elite group of athletes to win a championship in their first season with a new team. More so, he proved himself as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, earning his seventh Super Bowl ring.

Brady revealed during an interview this month that he battled a nagging knee injury throughout most of the season.

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"Every week, I was kind of tending to my knee and I thought, ‘I’d love to see a season, what it looks like when I can really focus on some other strength stuff that I want to do, some other technique stuff where I’m not just focused on protecting my knee all the time."

Head coach Bruce Arians said this week that he tried to limit Brady during mandatory minicamp following serious knee surgery, but the veteran was "begging" to go back in. 

"Trying to stop him from playing is pretty tough."