Brady Playing Until 50? 'Even For Me, That's A Long Time'

Although Tom Brady is showing no signs of slowing down, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback may not want to play until he's 50.

The QB seemed to dismiss general manager Jason Licht’s previous comments about having him play until age 50 — if he wanted — that Licht said last month during an appearance on "The Rich Eisen Show."

Licht said he told Brady in conversations they’ve had that the Bucs will have him for as long as he’s willing to play.

"I told him if he wants to play until he’s 50," Licht said on the show. " And if he’s still playing and he feels like he can still play, he can play until he’s 50."

In an interview with USA Today last week, Brady responded to Licht’s comments in and said he has always had a plan to play until the age of 45.

"50? That’s a long time. Even for me, that’s a long time," he said, per Fox News. "I’ve always said 45 was the age that I wanted to reach and that was my goal. This year I’ll be 44, so next year I’ll be 45. I got a two-year contract. I’m going to be able to obviously play this year and God forbid anything happens but play next year and then see what happens after that. If I still want to keep playing, I might be able to do that. And if that’s enough, then that would be enough."

Last season was big for Brady in many ways. After playing 20 seasons with the New England Patriots, Brady defied the odds and was able to prove he was more than just a system quarterback when he joined an elite group of athletes and led the team to win a Super Bowl in his first season.

Brady revealed during an interview that he had the nagging knee injury throughout most of the season, on top of it all.

"Every week, I was kind of tending to my knee and I thought, ‘I’d love to see a season, what it looks like when I can really focus on some other strength stuff that I want to do, some other technique stuff where I’m not just focused on protecting my knee all the time,'" Brady said.

Head coach Bruce Arians said he tried to limit Brady during the team's minicamp following serious knee surgery, but the veteran was "begging" to go back in. 

"Trying to stop him from playing is pretty tough," he said.