Tom Brady is getting pressure to hang up his jersey for good. No, not the pressure from other players who want a chance to win a Super Bowl. Instead, TB12 is getting leaned on by his own wife, Gisele Bundchen, to retire.
"If it was up to my wife, she would have me retire today," Brady told SiriusXM NFL Radio on Monday. "She told me that last night three times. And I said, 'Too bad, babe, I'm having too much fun right now.' You know, I feel like I can still do it. If you love what you do and you're capable of doing it, then I might be so bored if I wasn't going out there knowing that I could still do it. So I'm going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time."
Brady is coming off his record fifth Super Bowl win, in which he set a bevy of Super Bowl records. The 39-year-old shows no signs of slowing down. Despite missing four games due to suspension, Brady threw for 3,554 yards (extrapolates to 4,738 yards over 16 games) with an outrageous 28-to-2 TD-to-INT ratio.
Known for his notorious work ethic and health discipline (seriously, who eats avocado ice cream?), Brady said at Monday's MVP press conference that he doesn't feel close to slowing down.
"I don't feel 39. I hang out with a bunch of 20-year-olds so that makes you feel pretty young," he said.
"...When I was 25, I was hurting all the time. And now, at 39, my arm never hurts. My body never hurts. Even after I get banged up, I know how to take care of it and jump on it right away so that I can feel good for a Wednesday practice."
Outside of a diet that would make a hermit seem gluttonous, Brady credited his stable family life with Bundchen for his ability to focus on football.
"In some ways, being more experienced and having your family life settled does allow you to focus a little bit more, too, because there's less B.S. in your life," he told Sirius. "You have your family and you can go to work and focus on your job. And you expect your teammates to do the same."
