Tom Brady To Retire: ESPN

FOXBOROUGH, MA — The GOAT has left the building.

Tom Brady is retiring from football, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington Saturday afternoon.

Brady, 44, is leaving as the most decorated winner in the history of the NFL. He won a record 7 Super Bowls over his 22-year-career with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

He is the all-time leader in nearly every major passing category, winning three NFL MVPs and five Super Bowl MVPs.

No one has even won more games at any position than Brady.

"Thanks for the memories, babe," longtime receiver and close friend Julian Edelman tweeted.

Brady is leaving on his own accord, still near the top of his game and among the league's top quarterbacks each year. He threw for a career-high and league-leading 5,316 yards this season, starting all 17 games for the defending Super Bowl champion Buccaneers.

Brady almost pulled off one final comeback in his last game, bringing the Buccaneers back from 27-3 to tie the game in the final minute against the Los Angeles Rams in an NFC divisional round playoff game. The Rams kicked a field goal as time expired to survive.

Brady soon after dropped hints he was approaching the finish line, talking about spending more time with his family.

Brady's dominance was such that fans and peers acknowledged him as the "Greatest Of All Time" — or GOAT — well before he even left the Patriots for the Buccaneers. He likely could have walked off after the Patriots' Super Bowl comeback against the Atlanta Falcons in 2017 as the greatest player in NFL history.

But excellence didn't come cheap for the California kid who idolized Joe Montana before one day eclipsing him.

Brady was connected to some of the sport's greatest controversies, SpyGate and DeflateGate. The latter ended up in court and resulted in a four-game suspension during the 2016 season.

His retirement is the culmination of a career that famously started as the 199th pick of the 2000 NFL Draft and was infamously jumpstarted with a life-threatening injury to his friend.

Brady replaced Drew Bledsoe after the Patriots quarterback suffered a vicious hit from Jets linebacker Mo Lewis in a Week 2 loss against the New York Jets in 2001. Even after recovering, Bledsoe — who just signed a record contract with New England — never got his job back.

Brady led the Patriots to the AFC East title and one of the many defining games of his career — known locally as the Snow Bowl, known nationally as the Tuck Rule Game — nipping the Raiders in whiteout conditions in Foxborough.

After Bledsoe came in for an injured Brady to help top Pittsburgh for a ticket to the Super Bowl, Brady returned and captained the Patriots to their first NFL championship in a massive upset against the Rams.

The Patriots missed the playoffs the next, but Brady and coach Bill Belichick led the team to Super Bowl championships in each of the next two years, birthing a dynasty.