New on Sports Illustrated: Please Stop Freaking Out About That Tom Brady Photo

Tom Brady’s caption-less social media post has fans speculating wildly about his future.

What does it mean?!?!?!

Leave it to Tom Brady to find a way to make Super Bowl Week about him, even when he’s not playing in the game.

The question of Brady’s future has percolated beneath the surface of all NFL news since the Patriots’ shocking loss to the Titans. He’s set to be a free agent when the new league year begins in March and for the first time ever there’s no guarantee he’ll be a Patriot when training camps open in the summer. 

The Boston media has been rumormongering at a furious pace about the fate of the city’s hero. A WEEI radio host said

11 teams had reached out to Brady’s camp to say they were interested in employing him next season. A sports reporter at Boston’s ABC affiliate said he had heard Brady and wife Gisele Bundchen were spotted looking at schools in Nashville. 

So when Brady posted a caption-less black and white photo to his Twitter and Instagram pages last night, it was bound to spark all sorts of reckless speculation. 

That sort of speculation was intentional, of course. Brady’s social media team knows that posting a moody photo with no text where it’s impossible to tell whether he’s walking towards or away from the camera is bound to drive people nuts. A quick Twitter search brings up plenty of tweets from fans losing their minds about the post. 

And it’s not just random Twitter users taking the photo more seriously than it needs to be. USA Today’s article about the post includes a “MIAMI —” dateline, so the reader knows reporter Nate Davis had his boots on the ground at the Super Bowl collecting all the necessary information. ProFootballTalk’s Curtis Crabtree wrote, “Until Brady clarifies the intent of his message, the uncertainty about his future with the Patriots remains.” Even Adam Schefter—the guy for NFL news—did some reporting on it. 

Schefter says the post has nothing to do with Brady’s NFL career, which means he had to text Brady’s agent and ask him about a moody tweet, which is extremely funny. 

Whatever the purpose, Brady definitely succeeded in getting people to talk about him. There’s a chance, however slim, that the photo actually does have something to do with Brady’s looming decision. It could also just be a more highly produced version of this Billy Ray Cyrus tweet. 

My money is on it being a setup for a Super Bowl ad. Brady, smartly dressed and well coifed, a little gray in his beard, walks through the tunnel at Gillette Stadium. He strolls into the camera frame and says, “My time on the field is running out, that’s why I wear TAG Heuer timepieces—to make sure every second is luxurious.”

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