Opinion | Why Tom Brady should not retire -

Dear Tom Brady,

Guess you heard it’s Everybody Pile on Tom Brady Week.

Figures. When you’re a staggeringly handsome quarterbacking demigod who’s been operating at wildly unimaginable heights for 23 years, they’re bound to jump on with both feet when they finally get their chance.

You have one lousy game and suddenly it’s “too old, “washed up,” “selfish mercenary,” “should’ve quit three years ago.”

But I just want to say one thing — and I think I speak for millions of us who aren’t staggeringly handsome quarterbacking demigods: Don’t quit.

Look, Tom, I’m out here. Real Life is nothing like NFL Superstar Life. Feeling the thrill of victory with 46 of your best friends while 75,000 people forget to breathe? Once you quit, you won’t find anything like that out here. The other day I got the best parking place at Whole Foods and I fist-pumped. Actually fist-pumped. How sad is that?

You don’t realize how good you have it. Out here, when somebody on a plane elbows me in the kidney to shoehorn ahead of me so he can get to his seat one second faster, I don’t have five linemen the size of Sub-Zero freezers who will fling him to the ground and step on his larynx.

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Besides, you’re still Tom Terrific! You’ll be 46 next season, but you look 36. You were third in NFL passing yards this season, behind the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Chargers’ Justin Herbert. You have toothbrushes older than those guys.

After your Tampa Bay Bucs lost to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night, ESPN’s Marcus Spears had the gall to say, “I don’t think Tom Brady will win you games anymore.”Apparently, Spears’s WiFi was out on New Year’s Day, when you dropped two 50-yard-plus dimes for touchdowns, coming from behind to beat Carolina. You know who can’t win you games anymore? Marcus Spears. Because he retired. At 31.

Besides, all these people hollering for you to quit … Why? Because you’re 45? Because you’ve broken about every age record for non-kickers in NFL history?

Why would you quit something that nobody in history has done better? You are the GOAT. And after you quit, what will you go off and do? Play golf? Meh. You’re going to be decent as a Fox broadcaster, sure, but you’re no Charles Barkley.

Out here, in Real Life, there’s not going to be a room full of reporters wanting to hear about your every move.

Q: Tom, I noticed you decided to go with the Horsey Sauce rather than the Spicy Buffalo. Was that a decision you made earlier in the day or more spur of the moment?

You knew what a dumb idea it was to briefly retire last year. It’s still a dumb idea. It’s not just me hoping you keep playing. About a dozen teams out there probably don’t want you to quit either — because they could use a living legend. Not every day a guy with seven Super Bowl rings walks through the door.

I mean, dude, look at your choices … San Francisco, where you’d be about 26 minutes from where you grew up … Denver, where maybe you could rent Russell Wilson’s house, which has 12 bathrooms, one for every game the Broncos lost this season … the New York Jets, who haven’t had a big-time quarterback since Joe Namath was wearing a white fur coat in ’71. And that’s not counting Carolina, Cleveland, Houston, Indy, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Tampa and Tennessee. Telling you, most of these teams would rename the airport for you.

Look, TB12, you’ve sacrificed your whole life for this moment. While your friends were having the lobster tacos, you were having a protein shake with an electrolyte-infused-water chaser. While all your old teammates headed for the chocolate fountain bar, you went back to the gym for two more hours of bow-and-arrow pulls. While your family Netflixed, you cozied up to scintillating film of the Cleveland Browns’ nickel package. You get to do whatever the heck you want as long as you want.

Besides, some fires you can’t put out. I’ve seen you on the bench, screaming at your o-line when you’re behind. What are you going do with all that competitive juice? Scream at the Grease Monkey lube guy? “You gonna take that from a U-joint?!”

Remember what you said after you beat the Los Angeles Rams this year in OT with yet another clock-ticking miracle? “That was awesome. That was f---ing awesome." Trust me, very few things out here are that kind of awesome.

Although watching you play football comes close.

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