WOAY – After 20 seasons, Tom Brady will be leaving the New England Patriots.
In a social media post Tuesday morning, the quarterback said, in part, “It has truly been the happiest two decades I could have envisioned in my life and I have nothing but love and gratitude for my time in New England.”
The Patriots drafted Brady in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft, with the former Michigan quarterback taking over as starter in 2001. That season, he led the Patriots to their first of six Super Bowl championships; Brady would be named NFL MVP three times, and Super Bowl MVP four times.
Patriots chairman and CEO Robert Kraft said in a statement, “No one could have imagined the fairytale story that would be written, the records that would be broken or the joy he would bring to an entire region.”
Head coach Bill Belichick echoed Krafts sentiments: “Nothing about the end of Tom’s Patriots career changes how unfathomably spectacular it was.”
Brady and the Patriots have visited Southern West Virginia in recent years, when the team held joint training camp practices at the Greenbrier with the New Orleans Saints in 2015, and with the Houston Texans in 2017.
Brady has not indicated which team he will join for the 2020 season.