Tom Brady’s contract structure suggests he’s not retiring anytime soon

Tom Brady has signed a two-year deal with the Buccaneers, as was expected, but a closer look the structure points to him wanting to play longer.

It became official on Friday morning, with Tom Brady going to Instagram to show himself signing his contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It’ll be a two-year deal, as has been reported from the start.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Brady will get $50 million fully guaranteed with another $9 million available in incentives ($4.5 million per year). The deal also prohibits tags and trades, much like the restructured deal with the Patriots that made him a free agent did. As of right now only five quarterbacks will carry a larger cap hit than Brady this year.

Brady is committed to two years in Tampa Bay, his age-43 and age-44 seasons as it were. But as Schefter went further to note, preventing the Buccaneers from being able to tag him after two years may mean Brady has designs on playing beyond the end of the contract.

On the flip side, as they were ready to go all-in to get him, the Buccaneers may have just been agreeable to any flexible contract terms Brady wanted. Not being able to trade him during the deal or tag him to retain him longer on the back end of it are surely not huge issues for the team, as they operate in a win-now window with Brady joining head coach Bruce Arians.

Brady has professed a desire to play until he’s 45. Depending on how that’s strictly defined in his mind, it could mean his 45th birthday (Aug. 3, 2022) is the cut-off date or he wants to try to play an age-45 season in 2022. In any case the structure of his new contract keeps the idea of playing that age-45 campaign open, be it in a Buccaneers’ uniform or not.