Tom Brady's Super Bowl Joke Has The Internet Cracking Up

On February 13, the Los Angeles Rams narrowly defeated the Cincinnati Bengals to clinch their second Super Bowl win in franchise history, according to Sporting News. Despite trailing the Bengals in the fourth quarter, the Rams were able to snag a late touchdown, thanks to Cooper Kupp's heroics in the endzone. Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow — who was hit a record 19 times in the postseason — ultimately couldn't convert on fourth down. "We'll take this and let it fuel us for the next few years," Burrow said of the loss. As well as being a nailbiter, the game was notable in that it featured two head coaches under 40 years of age: the Rams' Sean McVay and the Bengals' Zac Taylor.

Per Sports Center, the 2022 Championship game marked another milestone — as it was the first time in 12 years that a Super Bowl hadn't featured the likes of quarterback legends Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. When he played for the New England Patriots, Brady was incredibly consistent, leading his team to seven Super Bowl appearances between 2011-2018, according to Yardbarker. After transferring to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brady also won the Super Bowl in the 2020 season, per CBS Sports. When his team fell to the Rams in 2022, Brady announced his retirement shortly thereafter.

Since the star athlete isn't used to having free time on the day of the Super Bowl, Brady took the opportunity to crack a joke on social media.

Ahead of Super Bowl LVI, Tom Brady posted a screenshot of his phone to Twitter, showing a calendar reminder that the Super Bowl was about to kick off. Perhaps because he wasn't playing in the game, Brady captioned his post simply: "S**t..." The tweet immediately went viral, racking up 22K retweets and 353K likes at the time of reporting. It also drew the attention of the NFL's official twitter handle. "There's always next year," the account wrote back, perhaps attempting to convince Brady to walk back his retirement call.

Despite making his retirement official after speculation broke that he would be hanging up his cleats for good in January 2022, Brady said on his SiriusXM podcast that he would "never say never" about returning to the NFL (via USA Today). His one-time teammate, Julian Edelman, also told the outlet it "wouldn't surprise him," should Brady decide to shelve retirement and make one last play at greatness.

According to a report from NFL.com, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are holding on to hope that the seven-time Super Bowl champion will suit up again and save them the trouble of finding a new quarterback. "The Buccaneers are leaving the door open for Tom Brady in case the legendary quarterback changes his mind on retirement, and sources say they would do whatever is necessary for him to return — a possibility Brady himself isn't completely ruling out," the report stated.