#Will Tom Brady retire after Buccaneers loss to Rams?

There will be no repeat Super Bowl championship, no eighth Lombardi Trophy for Tom Brady to hoist …

And now we find ourselves wondering:

Will we ever see him again?

In the final minute of Rams 30, Bucs 27, after the Rams had started choking and seemed to be doing everything in their power to keep him alive, after he had brought the Bucs back from a 27-3 deficit the way he brought the Patriots back from a 28-3 deficit in Super Bowl LI against the Falcons, Brady was helpless on his sideline watching Matthew Stafford find Cooper Kupp with a 44-yard bomb that set up Matt Gay’s 30-yard field goal as time expired.

So Brady, beaten and bloodied for a good part of this one, savaged by Von Miller and Aaron Donald and Leonard Floyd, will be home watching the Rams host the 49ers in a most improbable NFC Championship game/grudge match.

“It all sucks to lose in the end,” Brady said. He lost in the end because Sean McVay and Stafford played to win, and not every Buc who Todd Bowles expected to blitz did blitz.

Is this the way it ends for the GOAT?

“I haven’t put a lot of thought into it so, I’ll just take it day by day and see where we’re at,” Brady said.

He was asked what the biggest factor for him would be.

“Truthfully guys, I’m thinking about this game and not thinking about any … past five minutes from now,” Brady said.

John Elway was 38 when he walked away from the siren call of a threepeat … would Brady decide at 44 that there is nothing left for him to prove even if there are only seven rings for wifey Gisele to kiss?

“I can’t do it physically anymore,” Elway said, “and that’s really hard for me to say.”

Brady, of course, in a much more quarterback-friendly era, has made a mockery of Father Time.

“Physically I feel great,” he said.

We know that the model mother of two of his children has for years urged him to retire, and what if he finally concludes that Mother Knows Best?

So we have officially entered Where There Is Smoke There Is Fire territory.

Until the GOAT Terminator declares: “I’ll be back,” we will have to brace ourselves for the possibility of the Buc stopping here.

Only Brady knows … if he even knows himself right now.

Brady’s legacy, of course, is intact no matter when and how it ends.

The Rams kept gifting Brady last-gasp chances for a miracle in the second half, starting with Kupp’s fumble late in the third quarter that required Brady to march a mere 30 yards to cut the deficit to 27-13.

When Miller strip-sacked Brady and recovered at the Tampa Bay 25, it looked over.

Miller and Donald, in particular, had from the jump resembled sharks smelling blood. Brady’s blood. In fact, Brady had earlier wound up with a bloodied lower lip when Miller hit him a tad late and no flag was thrown, sending Brady into a tantrum that resulted in the first unsportsmanlike penalty of his career.

Stafford had come out swinging and they had made Brady one-dimensional and dared him to beat them.

Throwing to the likes of Scotty Miller and Tyler Johnson instead of Antonio Brown and Chris Godwin, and under siege without right tackle Tristan Wirfs.

Thanks in large part to them, he nearly did.

Brady’s 55-yard bomb to Mike Evans against Jalen Ramsey with 3:20 left made it Rams 27, Bucs 20, and all of Tampa was thinking the same thing as all of Atlanta must have been.

“When you got Tom,” Bruce Arians said, “you’re never out of it.”

Then Ndamukong Suh stripped Cam Akers — who had fumbled at the Bucs’ 1 in the first half — and Lavonte David recovered at the Rams 30.

Brady had 2:25 and no timeouts remaining. One last chance to make everyone around him believe.

He hit Cameron Brate for 9 yards and it was fourth-and-inches at the 9 with 46 seconds left, and Brady handed off to Leonard Fournette who eluded a Troy Reeder tackle and burst around right end and it was 27-27. But not for long.

Joe Montana was about to turn 39 when he retired … after two seasons in Kansas City.

“People’s concern about me getting injured had nothing to do with it,” he said at the time. “It would be more or less my own concern about I’m getting older and my kids are getting older and I have a long life ahead of me with them.”

When Michael Jordan retired for the first time at 29, he said: “When I lose the sense of motivation and the sense of, to prove something as a basketball player, it’s time for me to move away. It’s not because I don’t love the game. I always will. I just feel that I have reached the pinnacle of my career.”

Tom stands still now until he makes his decision.

“It’s one team one year, and then it’s never the same after that,” Brady said.

If he retires, the sport will never be the same after that.