Tom Brady’s Super Bowl performance has Mike Vick reconsidering his NFL retirement

Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Quarterback Mike Vick is already considering an NFL return just days after announcing his retirement.

Two days before Super Bowl 51, the longtime Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback decided to hang up the cleats. It was perfect timing — Vick made his decision at the pinnacle of the excitement around Atlanta.

And then Tom Brady did what he does and orchestrated the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. The Falcons blew a 25-point lead in a game that was quickly dubbed the worst football loss ever.

Per TMZ, it was Brady’s miraculous efforts in the Patriots’ comeback that inspired Vick to “[leave] the door open.”

“I’m getting cold feet man,” Vick said in an interview on the day following the Super Bowl and his retirement party. “As of right now I’m officially retired, but I’m gonna continue to work out, get myself in tip-top shape and just leave the door open.”

Though he hasn’t made an NFL start — let alone played a game — in over a year, Vick’s desire to make his NFL return is completely understandable. After all, Brady is 39 years old, while Vick, who served a one-and-a-half-year jail sentence, is three years younger than the Patriots’ superstar QB, with a lot more tread left on his tires than the five-time Super Bowl champ.

Vick, still a diehard Falcons fan, had been training four days a week in preparation for a potential 2016 comeback, but the opportunity never presented itself.

"I think it's time. I think going through the 2016 season without playing and being able to be a spectator and watch the game and enjoy it from afar and root for a lot of the players and coaches I once played for, I think kind of summed it all up for me,” Vick told ESPN’s Josina Anderson upon announcing his retirement.

Vick most recently spent time in Pittsburgh, backing up Ben Roethlisberger and making three starts in the 2015 season which spawned from injuries at the position. The Steelers compiled a 3-1 record in the games Vick played before the quarterback’s season was ended by a hamstring injury and Big Ben’s return soon after.

The quarterback has yet to make his return official, but it will be interesting to see if teams change their minds about the 36-year-old quarterback in the upcoming offseason.