Tom Brady's retirement came very close to lasting more than just a few weeks. After a golf game between Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, the 44-year-old opened up about his decision.

Among other things, he felt some pressure when the free agent market opened up.

“At this point it’s 55% yes and 45% no. It's not 100-0. This is simply the reality, he said, during the interview with the TNT network, which presented the golf duel won by the two elders. It's not that I'm not 100% committed, it's just that when I committed, my feeling was: "Ugh, ok here we go again".

"It's like running a marathon. You can't decide two weeks before the marathon, "hey I'm going to start running". We quickly arrived at the opening of the free agent market and I felt pressure to come back, so I contacted the organization and everything was sorted out.

Besides this pressure, Brady's commitments to his family also played a role in his hesitation.

"When you were their [Mahomes and Allen] age, if someone had asked me, 'Are you going to play football next year?' I would have said 100% chance. And I think as I got older it changed him because I have other responsibilities.

"Those responsibilities are that there are people who take care of me and my stuff off the pitch, those people are important to me, like my family, my kids, and my wife has done a great job there. level. It's a big commitment on his part, so it's harder when you get older. I don't believe they [Mahomes and Allen] are aware of everything that's coming. Aaron knows those things, because your life changes as you get older, there are more responsibilities.”

Brady will be back in 2022 to play the 23rd campaign of his career, during which he will have the chance to improve on some of his many records.