Tom Brady is squashing rumors that he's ready to unretire again — and his reason? He's a busy cat dad.
"Anyone who thinks I have time to come back to the NFL has never adopted a 2 month old kitten for their daughter,” the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots quarterback, 45, wrote March 7 on Twitter.
Brady's comment followed rumors of his return to the game discussed on "The Rich Eisen Show." Host Eisen revealed that NFL insiders had recently told him to "keep an eye on" Brady.
Eisen himself appeared not to believe the chatter since, as he said, the newly retired Brady spends his free time these days "Instagramming out videos of his cat."
The kitten — actually there are two of them — was adopted by Brady for his 10-year-old daughter, Vivian.
On Feb. 15, the seven-time Super Bowl champ announced the arrival of the feline family members by sharing a video in his Instagram stories that showed the kittens playing.
A banner at the top of the video read, “Vivi wins again,” which readers assumed meant that the dad of three gave into pleas from Vivian to adopt a cat or two. Brady also included a shoutout to the Humane Society of Tampa Bay, letting folks there know that the kittens were now "in good loving hands."
On Feb. 27, Vivian herself hijacked her dad's phone to post more sweet images of one of the kittens, whose name is Poke.
In one cute pic, Poke was seen dipping his head into a glass of water. “Poke is my name — Drinking out of Vivi’s water is my game,” Vivian captioned it.
In a second photo, tiny Poke was seen fast asleep. “Nap time!!!” Vivian wrote across the image, adding, “(Btw this is Vivi :) on Dads phone)” along with a crying-laughing emoji.
Brady shares Vivian and a son, Ben, 13, with ex-wife Gisele Bündchen. The athlete is also dad to a son, Jack, 15, with ex Bridget Moynahan.
On Feb. 1, Brady announced in a selfie video that he was retiring from the NFL “for good.”
Brady told fans he was keeping his retirement announcement simple since he’d announced a previous retirement exactly one year prior but changed his mind to unretire 40 days later.
“Good morning guys, I’ll get to the point right away: I’m retiring for good,” he said. “I know the process was a pretty big deal last time, so when I woke up this morning, I figured I’d just press record to let you guys know first so it won’t be long-winded.”
“You only get one super emotional retirement essay, and I used mine up last year,” he added.