About that whole Adam Schefter ‘Tom Brady may leave!’ thing...

You probably get this a lot, too, depending on who you hang out with and how much trash you talk (usually in that order):

“You guys are going to SUCK when Brady and Belichick leave!”

Wait WHAT.

Shut the front door! You mean to tell me that when a very good coach and a very good quarterback leave a very good team, the team will become bad unless they are replaced with other very good coaches and players? BUCKLE UP SNOWFLAKES, these guys are gonna hit us homers with some TRUTH!

Next you’re going to tell us “I figured out the problem — this order is going to Columbus, and that’s a one-way delivery, but you’ve got it marked down for two.”

(that’s because it’s going to Columbus, GA, not Columbus, OH. What else you got?)

So when the Patriots and Jets were getting ready to rumble on Monday Night Football, ESPN’s Adam Schefter hopped on Monday Night Countdown to chat about everyone outside New England’s favorite topic since reports of TURMOIL between Brady, Kraft, and Bill came out right before the Eagles Super Bowl — could Tom Brady peace out and play somewhere else?

Here’s the clip:

And here’s the full conversation, in case you’re stuck at work or in class and are experiencing the most first world of first world problems — forgetting your headphones:

Schefter: Let’s just boil this down to the basic facts, once again. When we talk about Tom and his future, let’s look at some simple things. Has he put his home for sale?

Steve Young: Yeah, but-

Schefter: Hold on. Has he put his home for sale? Yes. Has his trainer put his home for sale? Yes. Has he set up his contract to void this season and become a free agent? Yes. So if he’s selling his home, and his trainer’s selling his home, and he’s voiding his contract, what does that tell you?

Steve Young: It tells you that he now recognizes, in the NFL, that you can play much longer because the game is safer for quarterbacks, it is easier in many ways for quarterbacks, and because of that, you’re going to get guys that play for 23, 24 years. The odds of you playing for one team just go down more and more as you play longer and longer. So, your point being, the odds of Tom Brady finishing in New England are getting lower as he plays longer, just because there’s opportunity and option-

Suzy Kolber: But it sounds like he’s making these decisions on his own, then he’s dictating-

Schefter: He’s setting it up, and we’ll see, to move on. Now listen, there are many times people set up things in their life to move on, and they walk to the abyss and look down and say “Woah, I’m not jumping now”. So he could change his mind. But I’m just telling you, if you look at it, in his mind, it has to be clear. He’s thinking about leaving New England.”

Steve Young: In many ways, it comes down to how Jerry Rice and I thought about retiring. I felt it was super important to retire as a 49er. Like, I want to be on the 49ers, and Jerry’s like “I’m playing ball, bro!”. And he went to Oakland, he went to Seattle, like, does anyone care that he went to Oakland, or Seattle, or even Denver? No! So he proved to me, that Tom, in the end, he will retire, and go to the Hall of Fame as a New England Patriot quarterback, whether he finishes there, or not.

Randy Moss: You know, with what you’re saying, Adam, that’s very shocking. Where do you see him going?

Schefter: Well, I’ll say this - it’s setting up, I don’t know whether he’s going to play, not play, move on-

Randy Moss: But if he did decide to go, where we would you see-

Schefter: I’m sure there would be a half dozen franchises or a dozen franchises that would be interested.

Let’s take a quick beer break.

Cause on Tuesday morning, Adam picks up right where he left off before the Patriots left New York with the Boogeymen & Co plastering the Jets with a goose egg on the scoreboard:

The easy smartass answer here, of course, would be to point out that the very same Greg Hill Show also reported that Tom and Gisele and Benjamin and Vivian and Lua and Fluffy and Scooby are buying a place in Connecticut, which, as a former Connecticut-an myself, I can confirm that most of eastern CT should be annexed by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or both, and then New York can have the yuppie side. But that’s another topic for another day, and we’re not here just to go LMAO OWNED at Adam Schefter.

It’s just that everything in that clip, from the house-selling to the contract voiding, fits right in with exactly what Tom Brady’s been telling everyone who asks he’s going to do.

Play till he sucks and/or he’s not loving it, and then chuck deuces and peace out as the greatest to ever do it with the only question being whether his next “Roger that!” commercial will need a bigger locker for all the rings.

TFB, 2014: “When I suck, I’ll retire.”

TFB to Oprah, 2018: “As long as I’m loving the training and the preparation, I’m willing to make the commitment,” he said. “But I think what I alluded to a lot in the docu-series is that there are other things happening in my life, too. I do have kids that I love, and I don’t want to be a dad that’s not there driving my kids to their games. My kids have brought a great perspective to my life. Kids just want the attention. You better be there and be available to them.”

“I still feel like there’s more to be accomplished,” he told Winfrey. “I still feel like I’m in it. I still feel like I’m doing it . . . I still feel like I can be better . . . I still think I want to go out there and compete and play with a bunch of 22 year olds.”

TFB, February 2019, pre-Super Bowl: “I’ve said before, when I suck, I’ll retire.”

TFB, to Randy Moss on Monday: “I’m still fueled by the love of the game, I enjoy it and football’s my first love. I sit here and think, ‘well if I wasn’t playing football, what would I be doing?’, and I can’t an answer to that. So it’s like, why not just keep doing what I love doing?”

Now time for the final boss fight: that whole “contract that voids after the 2019 season” deal.

Quick refresher: that tweak in Brady’s contract from this past summer gave him a sweet raise for this season that’s still at least eight figures a year below what he *could* be demanding, and yeah, those last two years on the deal automatically void after the 2019 season.

So which one makes more sense: “He’s planning to leave after 2019!”

OR

The guy who’s been the best bargain in football for a decade because he knows that there’s that whole “salary cap” thing also knows that not only are several of the big dogs on this team, especially on this year’s All-Madden defense, are gonna need new deals over the next year, not to mention the possibility that he himself may very well ball out and play himself into a higher salary next year?

Oh, and that whole “adding WEAPONS on offense” thing, like swinging a trade for Mohamed Sanu yesterday morning while most of us were on coffee #1 of the day?

Brady’s been betting on himself this whole time, and he’s still tied for sixth-best odds to win MVP this season.

He also really, really likes winning. Here’s Brady a couple weeks ago on which NFL record is his favorite:

“The name of the game for me has always been winning, and I think that that’s the one that has and always will mean the most,” Brady said.

And TB12 just keeps setting himself up to do just that.