Tom Brady still wants to play this year, and beyond

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When Patriots quarterback Tom Brady wasn’t taking passive-aggressive shots at his employer, or questioning the decision-making in the Super Bowl, he actually dropped in something like a straight answer.

During his chat with Jim Gray at the Milken Institute Global Conference in California, Brady came right out and said he intended to play in 2018 and beyond, after weeks of will-he-or-won’t-he half-reports and rumors.

“I have personal goals. I want to keep playing,” he said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com. “I’ve said for a long time I want to play to my mid-40s. I was told three years, when I was 36-37, ‘You can’t keep playing; no one wins Super Bowls [at that age].’ It’s a great challenge for me. I think I’ve been challenged my whole life. I feel like I can do it. . . .

“I have a great system in place that works well for me in order to keep me performing at my highest level. . . . What I want to do in the meantime is I want to inspire people through my action. Not tell them what to do, but just show it.”

Getting in a plug for the TB12 method, which he likes and has won converts to, seemed fitting with the overall theme of his chat — which seemed to be “poking the bear that is Bill Belichick with a long stick.” He also discussed his decision to stay away from the team’s offseason program.

“Part of this offseason for me is certainly about still preparing for what’s ahead in my next journey, my next mountain to climb with this group of teammates, but it’s also [acknowledging] that a lot of people are getting the short end of the stick in my life — certainly my wife and my kids,” Brady said. “Football is year-round for me. It’s a lot of thought, a lot of energy and emotion put into it, but I need to invest in them, too. My kids are 10, 8 and 5. They’re not getting younger, so I need to take time so I can be available to them, too. . . .

“I’ve really spent the last two or three months doing those things, and I think I’m really trying to fill my tank up so that when I do go back, I can go back and I think I’ll actually be, in my mind, a better player, a better teammate, because I’ll be really rejuvenated.”

While it’s probably a step too far to declare it a mutiny, it’s at least a polite thumbing of the nose in the direction of authority. While offseason programs are voluntary, they’re only truly voluntary for players who have leverage and options. The Patriots dealt away his presumptive heir, and didn’t draft another this year (Danny Etling in the seventh doesn’t count). So now Brady gets to enjoy time with the kids while Belichick is playing drill sergeant during the spring, secure in the knowledge that he can’t be replaced. It’s fascinating to watch, the latest in a series of steps in an awkward dance between the league’s best coach and the league’s most decorated quarterback.

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