Tom Brady's decision to reverse his retirement and return to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the 2022 season produced a rocky final chapter to his career — an 8-9 finish, an 11-day training-camp absence before the regular season began, and a decline in his own passing numbers that Brady himself later admitted came during one of the hardest stretches of his life. He announced the reversal on March 13, 2022, just 40 days after saying he was walking away from football.
A Comeback That Started With a Reversal
Brady's return marked the start of his 23rd NFL season, according to upnorthlive.com, which reported the March announcement came just over a month after he had said he was retiring. The Buccaneers welcomed him back for what would become a season defined as much by off-field strain as by anything happening on the field.
That strain became visible in August 2022, when Brady left the team for 11 days during training camp for what were described only as personal reasons, as reported by wusf.org. The outlet noted the team characterized the absence as a pre-planned break that had been agreed to before training camp even began in July, framing it as something arranged in advance rather than a sudden departure.
Brady Hinted at the End Mid-Season
By September 2022, Brady was already signaling that his playing days were numbered. He said he was “close to the end” of his NFL career, according to crossroadstoday.com, adding that “there's no decision to be made, it's not like I have 10 years left.” Those comments came at age 45, a year Brady later said he had long targeted as a natural stopping point so he could spend more time with his children.
On the field, the numbers told their own story of decline. Brady ranked third in the NFL in passing yards that season with 4,694 and threw 25 touchdown passes, a notable drop from 2021, when he led the league outright with 5,316 passing yards and 43 touchdowns, per the same wavy.com report. Tampa Bay's offense leaned heavily on his arm even as it struggled elsewhere — the Bucs finished with the league's second-ranked passing attack at 269.8 yards per game, but ranked 32nd in rushing at 76.9 yards and 25th in scoring at 18.4 points per game, according to wavy.com.
An 8-9 Record Still Good Enough for the Division
Despite the underwhelming record, Tampa Bay repeated as NFC South champions, holding off the Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons in a division that simply lacked a stronger contender that year, the outlet reported. It was a modest achievement dressed up as a division title — an 8-9 team advancing to the postseason purely because nobody else in the NFC South managed better.
Brady later reflected on how difficult that season had been away from the field as well. “My last season was tough,” he said, according to sg.news.yahoo.com, which reported his comments came amid a personal family matter that affected his ability to play. He also described having long envisioned 45 as a stopping point, saying, “I felt like I always had a goal — 45. I was 45 years old, I wanted to spend time with my kids.”
The Marriage Ended as the Season Wound Down
Brady and Gisele Bündchen finalized their divorce on October 28, 2022, ending a 13-year marriage, the same outlet reported, quoting their joint announcement that they had “finalized their divorce.” The timing placed the end of his marriage squarely in the middle of the same season Brady would later call tough, though the dossier record does not tie the two events together beyond his own general description of a difficult year.
Brady played his last NFL game in 2023, after his divorce was finalized.
What is established without dispute is the shape of that final season: a return from retirement, a mid-camp leave, a statistical decline from his league-leading 2021 output, and an 8-9 finish that still carried Tampa Bay to a division title. Brady's own description of the year as “tough” stands as the closest thing to a verified personal accounting of how that comeback season actually felt from the inside.
