Buccaneers' Tristan Wirfs already has Tom Brady regret about career

Tristan Wirfs of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is a former Super Bowl champion, regarded as one of the best offensive tackles in the NFL when healthy and will turn 27 years old in January 2026. That said, it appears Wirfs is already thinking about his legacy as a player. 

During a recent appearance on the "Bussin’ With the Boys" podcast, Wirfs talked about how he felt he let legendary quarterback Tom Brady down during what became Brady's final appearance in his Hall of Fame NFL career. 

This Tom Brady memory haunts Tristan Wirfs

"I don’t want to be the one to end Tom Brady’s career," Wirfs recalled thinking in January 2023, as shared by the JoeBucsFan website. "Which it turns out I did. The last play of Tom’s career, I gave up a sack. That’s going to stick with me for the rest of my life."

ESPN shows that Wirfs merely surrendered the final sack of Brady's career when Micah Parsons, then with the Dallas Cowboys, brought down the seven-time Super Bowl champion during the wild-card playoff game between Dallas and Tampa Bay. Brady's last play in that game was an incomplete pass, and he officially retired in February 2023. 

Tom Brady was in Tristan Wirfs' head early on

Brady signed with the Buccaneers as a free agent in March 2020, just before Tampa Bay picked Wirfs in the first round of that year's draft. During the podcast, Wirfs discussed the conversation he had with Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht after Tampa Bay submitted their draft card.

"Talk about nightmare fuel, dude," Wirfs explained. "That’s what [Licht] told me when they called me the night of the draft. 'You ready to protect Tom Brady?' And I was like, 'What? You’ve got to be kidding me.'"

During his first training camp, Wirfs competed against then-teammates Jason Pierre-Paul and Shaq Barrett. Those experiences led to Wirfs receiving helpful advice from Brady before the season began.  

"[Brady] said, 'Don’t get beat fast and don’t get beat inside and we’ll be okay,'" Wirfs remembered. “And I was like, 'Sounds good.'"

In the end, Wirfs made 16 starts as a rookie for a Tampa Bay team that went on to win a Super Bowl. Eventually, he and Brady should be able to share a laugh about a sack few will talk about when discussing the players' careers years from now.