Tom Brady has nothing left to prove, Cowherd says

You don't win seven Super Bowls without an abnormal level of passion and work ethic. Just ask Tom Brady. 

It's well-documented that very few athletes — if any — have worked as hard as Brady to sustain an elite level of excellence, and his fervor for football is what's kept him going for over two decades.

But according to Brady, that fire could soon be doused. 

"I think I’m part crazy, I think that’s the reality," he told Dan Patrick on The Dan Patrick Show. "I’m 45 years old and I’m out here with a lot of young guys that are trying to take my head off.

"When I see Aaron Donald work out on my Instagram, I’m like, ‘Damn, maybe I should have retired,’ you know? Because he’s a beast. But I have the appetite to compete. And it’s going to be gone soon, there’s no doubt about it, and I gotta just really appreciate the time I have left because it’s not a lot."

Colin Cowherd wasn't surprised by Brady's admission, emphasizing that his fire could be dwindling because he essentially has nothing left to prove.

"We've sensed with Tom that he was Mr. Focused, Mr. Intense," Cowherd said on "The Herd." "He would take footballs and invite teammates — with a supermodel wife — the minute he won a Super Bowl down to Costa Rica. That is obsessed.

"But after [Brady] won his first Super Bowl with Tampa, I've never felt he was the same. It's always come down to three words for him: something to prove. It's not money, it's not fame. After he won without [Bill] Belichick — he was already the GOAT — but he always had to prove something. [He wanted to prove], 'It wasn't Belichick, it was me.'"

Cowherd compared Brady's lessening passion to one of the greats on the hardwood, LeBron James, saying that James' interest appeared to wane after he won a championship with the Lakers.

"I saw this with LeBron James: After he won in the bubble in Los Angeles, he had nothing to prove. He loses the next year to Phoenix in the first round in the playoffs, and in the locker room, he's like ‘I can’t wait for Space Jam.'

"Can you imagine that nine years ago?"