G.O.A.T.: With hurt in his voice, Tom Brady retires for real this time, ends epic NFL career | Opinion

This time it took all of 53 seconds to end a 23-year fantasy ride and close the thickest chapter in NFL history. Tom Brady was close up and looking you right in the eye, outdoors and wearing a gray T-shirt. You could hear the wind in the mic. You could hear the emotion in his voice.

The headline on his Twitter feed read: ‘Truly grateful on this day. Thank you’ followed by emojis of prayer hands and a heart.

This was goodbye in the social-media age, every word of it, from the single greatest, most accomplished football player at the most important position in America’s biggest sport:

“Good morning guys, I’ll get to the point right away. I’m retiring. For good. I know the process was a pretty big deal last time so when I woke up this morning I figured I’d press record and let you guys know first. I won’t be long-winded. You only get one super-emotional retirement essay and I used mine up last year. So, really, thank you guys so much for every one of you for supporting me. My family, my friends, teammates, my competitors. I could go on forever, there’s too many. Thank you guys for allowing me to live my absolute dream. I wouldn’t change a thing. Love you all.”

As endings go it was a perfect spiral into the end zone and hit us right in the chest, where the heart is. It was a video goodbye of brevity and class. You could hear the gratefulness. And the hurt. You heard his voice waver a few times, including when he thanked his family, just a few months after his very public divorce from wife Gisele became final.

“I could go on forever,” he said.

In a way it seemed he did. We had him for more than one-fifth of the NFL’s century-plus history. We had him way longer than we had any right to expect or to hope — until the football-crazy age of 45. We had seemingly forever to prepare for this day.

And yet it still hurts.

It reminds us that all good things must end and that great things must, too. Reminds us that aging and mortality catch us all in the end.

This ending was neat and sure felt final, though there will be slivers of doubt from some because we were here one year ago exactly.

It was a messy retirement then. Chaotic. ESPN reported it, not Brady. The quarterback’s agent would not confirm it, and his father said nothing was decided. For three days there was doubt (and sweating at ESPN headquarters) before Brady finally said he was done.

Then changed his mind and re-upped with Tampa Bay for one more season.

If this time it’s final it is on his terms. It is not a forced retirement based on glaring diminishing of skills or his suddenly being the old quarterback nobody wanted. The NFL is not retiring him.

Even as he hit send on his farewell tweet and end on his career Wednesday morning in the 8 o’clock hour, ESPN’s lead story was on the NFL’s offseason QB market — with Brady’s pending free agent availability front and center.

The story predicted Brady would end up with the Raiders in Las Vegas, replacing Derek Carr. It also speculated he might re-up for one more year in Tampa ... or return to New England. Bill Belichick swallowing his pride to make that happen seemed unlikely. But the Vegas option didn’t.

The speculation surely would have included the Miami Dolphins in a major way until very recently.

Heck, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has been enamored of Brady for a while, and improperly so. The NFL found Ross guilty of tampering by arranging a luncheon on Ross’ yacht while the quarterback was still under contract with the Tampa. The skulduggery cost Miami its 2023 first-round draft pick.

Dolphins general manager Chris Grier in his recent end-of-season news conference recommitted to Tua Tagovailoa moving forward despite his concussion history. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported more recently (though it seemed obvious by now) that Miami had moved on and would not pursue Brady in free agency.

Even in retirement, though, the Brady/Dolphins saga might not be over. He remains a free agent of sorts in terms of his possibly joining a team at the ownership or front office levels, and Miami would be at the front of that list. Brady is building a home north of Miami, and his becoming a Dolphins part-owner has been a percolating rumors for a while.

But that’s for another day. This day belongs to what Brady has meant to the game.

Now it is time to etch the historic, record-setting numbers in stone:

The seven Super Bowl championships. The 89,214 passing yards, 649 touchdown passes and 7,753 completions.

The retirement comes as the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs prepare to fly to Arizona for the February 12 Super Bowl and compete for the Vince Lombardi Trophy — and they might as well call it the Tom Brady Trophy now. I’m half serious. Tom won five more Super Bowls than the man whose name is on the prize now.

What’s most astonishing about Brady’s career is it never should have happened. His college career at Michigan did not foretell it Then the NFL barely wanted him, the Patriots selecting him 199th overall in the sixth of seven rounds of the 2000 draft. Quarterbacks taken ahead of Brady included people named Spergon Wynn and Giovanni Carmazzi.

Brady’s career was not only the greatest ever. It was the most shocking ever. The high first-round quarterbacks waltz in on a red carpet surrounded by paparazzi. Brady entered by an alley door and came in through the kitchen.

In other sports, who’s the greatest of all time is open to debate.

You can argue Michael Jordan-or-LeBron James all night long. In soccer is it Messi now or still Ronaldo or even Pele’? The argument in baseball is forever clouded and complicated by steroids. Greatest Olympian ever has plenty of candidates. Hockey always crowned Wayne Gretzky ... but now Alex Ovechkin is within sight of his all-time goals record.

In football, Brady thanked us all on Wednesday. We should thank him.

In football there is no need for even a Mount Rushmore, because Brady is a one-man mountain, unscalable, the summit in the clouds.

In football there is one G.O.A.T., alone in his field.