Tom Brady explains that he felt pressured into ending his retirement

Arguably the greatest quarterback in NFL history, 44 year-old Tom Brady made the decision to call it a career earlier this year after his Tampa Bay Buccaneers were defeated by the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams in their divisional postseason matchup. However, that retirement lasted only a few weeks, as Brady suddenly pivoted and announced his intentions to return in 2022 to once again suit up for the Bucs. 

However, he explained earlier this week that he felt pressured into a return - not to add to his already cemented legacy, but due to free-agency. 

"At this stage, it's like 55% yes and 45% no. It's not 100-0. That's just the reality," Brady said in a roundtable that aired on TNT following Capital One's The Match golf outing with Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, via ESPN. "It's not that I'm not 100% committed, it's just as soon as I make the commitment to do it, it's like 'Ugh. All right, here we go.' It's like running a marathon. You can't decide two weeks before the marathon, 'Hey, I'm going to start running.' We got right to free agency and I felt some pressure to do it and talked to the team and organization, and it all worked out."

But, was he ready to walk away from the game when he made the call earlier in the year? According to Brady, he was "partly" ready. 

"Partly, you know, yes," said Brady. "And I think when you're (Mahomes and Allen's) age, if you were to ask me, 'Are you going to play football next year?' I would say there's a 100% chance I'm playing. And I think as I've gotten older, that's changed because I have other responsibilities.

"So the responsibilities are many people taking care of me and things that I have off the field that are really important to me like my family, my kids, my wife's done an amazing job of that. That's a big commitment from her, so it's harder when you get older. I don't even think they know what's coming. Aaron knows these things because your life gets bigger as we all do, our life gets more full — there's more responsibilities."

Last season with the Bucs, Brady threw 43 touchdowns along with a career high 5,316 yards.