Just like Otto Graham

Tom Brady has decided to follow the path of another great quarterback of long ago.

That is, after retiring, he has decided to come out of retirement and return to the field.

Brady stunned the football world when he Sunday that he will come back and play the 2022 season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He had announced about a month ago, not long after the Los Angeles Rams’ victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl 56, that he was retiring after over two decades in the NFL.

These past two months I’ve realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands. That time will come. But it’s not now. I love my teammates, and I love my supportive family. They make it all possible. I’m coming back for my 23rd season in Tampa. Unfinished business LFG pic.twitter.com/U0yhRKVKVm

— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) March 13, 2022

Browns Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Otto Graham also retired and then came out of retirement a little over 65 years ago. But it happened in a much different way.

Graham announced his retirement following the 1954 NFL Championship Game, in which he led the Browns to a resounding 56-10 win over the Detroit Lions at Cleveland Stadium. It was a fitting way for him to go out and end his nine-year pro football career, as he threw for three touchdowns and ran for three more, accounting for six of Cleveland’s eight TDs in the 46-point rout. It was the Browns’ largest margin of victory in any of their six league title game victories to that point.

Graham, the only quarterback the Browns had ever had in their nine seasons of existence since first taking the field in 1946, had led them to four straight championships in the All-America Football Conference, and then to another title in 1950 when they moved to the NFL after the AAFC disbanded.

The Browns had also played in the NFL title game three more times, from 1951-53, but lost. The victory in 1954 came after losing to Detroit in 1952 and ’53.

But when Graham retired following the 1954 championship game, he left open the possibility of returning by telling Browns head coach Paul Brown to give him a call if he couldn’t find a suitable replacement. And Brown, the former Massillon High school and Ohio State head coach, did indeed contact Graham when he struggled to come out with his successor in the 1955 training camp.

Graham returned and, following a tough outing in a loss to Washington in the opener, he led the Browns back to the title game against the host Los Angeles Rams. He threw for two TDs and ran for two more as the Browns won again in a rout, 38-14, exactly a year after walloping Detroit in 1954. He then retired again, this time for good, ending a 10-year career during which he led the Browns to the league title 10 straight times, with seven wins.

Will Tom Brady do the same and lead the Buccaneers to the Super Bowl title next season, just as he had done in Super Bowl 55 over the Kansas City Chiefs? We’ll see. A loss to the Rams in the NFC divisional playoffs last season whetted his appetite to come back for one more year and try to go out a champion, just as Otto Graham did so many years ago.

By Steve King