The two words he used to explain his comeback surely were not intended to be funny, but were nonetheless as Tom Brady announced his return to the NFL from his Twitter and Instagram on Sunday night.

“Unfinished business.”

Seriously?

One could argue no athlete in the history of competition has retired with his business so completely and emphatically taken care of. I mean, seven Super Bowl rings, most ever. Career records for passing yards and touchdowns.

Across all sports this is the grand marshal of the G.O.A.T. parade. Not since God created heaven and earth in six days has anyone earned a rest more than Brady.

So, are we getting a bit greedy here, Tom? What is the unfinished business, exactly? A perfect season with nary an incomplete pass?

Brady coming back to play (at least) another season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after a whole 40 days’ ‘retirement’ invites poking a little fun.

What about that yearning to finally have more time with the wife and three growing children? Kids getting on your nerves that fast? Giselle hectoring you to get off your butt and mow the lawn?

In announcing his retirement on February 1, Brady said his “100 percent competitive commitment” was no longer there. Some time during the past six weeks he must have found it, along with loose change, under the sofa cushions.

Kidding aside, Brady pivoting on retirement is good not only for the Bucs but for the NFL and sports at large. This is a transcendent person of historic heft. Michelangelo. Sinatra. Hepburn. Jordan. Gretzky. Brady.

He will turn 45 as training camp opens. Preposterous to say, and another element of his greatness: His game may be closer to prime-quality than anything creaking with age.

He has not missed a single game injured in 13 years. And did he not lead the NFL in passing yards (with a career high) and TDs just last season? He did.

He went out on top.

But he isn’t done climbing.

He left us wanting more.

Now he’s giving it to us.

This is the curtain-call encore we didn’t expect, so stand and applaud. Appreciate. Enjoy it. If this is a victory lap, well, who has earned it more?

“These past two months I’ve realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands,” Brady said. “That time will come. But it’s not now.”

Ripples from the cannonball news have been quick.

Maximbet.com improved Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl odds from 28-1 to 8-1, now third best after the Bills at 7-1 and Packers at 15-2, and ahead of the Chiefs at 9-1 and champion Rams at 12-1. Brady immediately leaped to fourth in MVP odds, narrowly behind Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers.

And the timing of his announcement, on the eve of free agency, likely might persuade a few wavering Buccaneers to re-up.

Too often, athletes don’t know when to quit, or how.

I recall my first childhood hero, Willie Mays, in his last season at age 42. It was tough to watch.

Brady is not that. Far from it.

When he says the time to stop playing will come, “But it’s not now,” there is an awareness that once it ends for good, never to return, everything changes. Yes, his post-career life will be gilded in gold. In business. Perhaps with a lucrative offer to hop in a TV studio. Maybe just sailing around the world in his $6 million, 77-foot yacht with his supermodel wife. Hall of Fame induction will await, of course.

Coming back puts all of that off, gives him another shot at an eighth Super Bowl ring. But you suspect there are greater reasons that drew him back in. Reasons more intimately personal.

This is who Brady is. Part of an athlete dies when the games stop, and the greater the athlete, the greater the loss.

Once he retires for good, Brady knows he will never find anything else to replace the camaraderie of a locker room, or the adrenaline he feels dropping back to pass, or the electricity from a cheering crowd.

You cannot buy any of these things, and there is no substitute for them.

Those are the cherished, irreplaceable feelings Tom Brady was desperate to hold onto a little while longer.