Tom Brady: "When I suck, I'll retire."

Photo by AP

Tom Brady is mortal. At some point in the future, old man time is going to catch up with him. Its hard for us as fans to think about that actually happening but we will have to face a life without Tom Brady, we just hope its not for a long long time.

After the shocking trade that sent Logan Mankins to the Bucs last week, we were reminded that this is a team that isn't afraid to part ways with an aging star. Its happened before and it will most likely happen again. Which made people wonder if that sort of thing could happen to Brady when he has reached a point when his skills have started to decline. The Patriots did use a 2nd round pick on Jimmy Garoppolo. Could this be the Patriots preparing for life after Brady? Maybe setting up a showdown between the youngster and the decorated veteran?

Tom Brady knows this is a possibility. He does have a plan though, just in case this scenario happens. And in the NFL where there are no fool proof plans it looks like he has come up with the closest thing to one as possible. Just don't suck.

There’s nowhere I’d rather play, I know that," Brady told WEEI on Tuesday morning. "I love playing for this team and I love representing this team. Hopefully I can do that for as long as I can. When I suck, I’ll retire. I don’t plan on sucking for a long time. Hopefully that leads me to be in here, and there’s no place I’d rather be. I love this game and I love working hard at it.

You can't argue with his logic. If he continues playing at a high level there would be no way that Belichick would dump him in favor of the unproven Garoppolo.

The only thing that could wreck his best laid plans, besides sucking of course, would be to get injured. They always say that you can't lose your job because of injury but that's not the case. Especially with the quarterback. Hell, that's how Tom Brady got this job in the first place.

So go ahead and tell Tom Brady that he is going to be traded eventually. Tell him that his play is in decline and that he won't be able to play past 40. He wont care. He'll just use it as motivation to help him stay elite.

I’ve had a lot of people over the years tell me the things I couldn’t do, and I think that’s always been great motivation for me to go out there and accomplish things that I think I can do. Hopefully it’s to continue to play at a high level for a really long period of time.

In the immortal words of John Locke "Don't tell Tom Brady what he can't do!"

H/T Comcast Sportsnet

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