While the decline of a great athlete is freighted with the usual autumnal sadness that comes with endings and how they relate to mortality, for those of a certain age, watching Tom Brady play football in 2022 has been like shopping for one’s own casket.
Although earth’s most competitive oddball occasionally displays the old fire in the belly—hollering at some guys, wrecking Microsoft Surface tablets, hollering at some other guys—the current version of Brady more often than not looks like a sloppily written first draft of an old man. As time goes about its tireless work of making us all look and feel like hell, Brady’s age-defying vitality seems to be draining out of him.