The emblematic Tom Brady moment came at the very beginning of our fascination with him, immediately after winning his first Super Bowl in 2002.
In his final year at the University of Michigan, Brady, a senior, lost his starting job to an 18-year-old freshman. He won it back, but people wondered. He was only drafted because he looked like a prototype at his position – making him a beneficiary of the 'good body' bias that still afflicts quarterbacks.
In his rookie season in the NFL, Brady sat fourth on the New England Patriots depth chart. He threw three passes that year.
By second year, he'd risen to low-risk insurance for the team's franchise pivot, Drew Bledsoe. Bledsoe got hurt. Brady Wally Pipped him.
Upon his return, Bledsoe wasn't angry, so much as comically perplexed. He continued to refer to Brady's spot as "my job."
Brady was knocked out of the AFC championship game. Bledsoe returned and won it.
An interviewer later put it to Bledsoe that coming off the bench to win a playoff encounter was a "Hollywood ending."
"The Hollywood ending would have been for me to play in the damn Super Bowl," Bledsoe said.
Instead, Bledsoe stood on the sidelines and watched Brady win the first of three titles. Did he know then that history had just brushed past him, and forever?
As the Super Bowl ended, Brady ran to the middle of the field, howling. Bledsoe tried to walk by, but Brady went straight for him. Bledsoe deflected with a raised hand. He was already sliding away.
"Way to go, baby," Bledsoe said, unable to look directly at his usurper. "You are the man."
To hear it again, there is an unspeakably deep well of hurt in that sentence.
Brady looks confused. He has so often been the second man in his own life, he can't understand how someone could begrudge him his chance at being first. He's left hanging. He's never been left hanging again – not publicly.
That's the closest we ever got to knowing something real about America's most marketable, if not most loved, athletic star.
What can you say about Tom Brady? Excellent at his work. A family man. A celebrity. A peerless pitchman. One hell of a smile attached to one hell of a story.
What does any of that mean? Nothing.
Brady had a cold this week during Super Bowl prep. In interviews, he looked wan and reduced. You almost felt sorry for him.
All I could think of was Frank Sinatra, who also famously had a cold. Like Brady, he was unknowable during the peak of his career. But whereas Sinatra sold the world a personality he didn't have, Brady deflects attention from a personality that does not exist, in the same way gravity bends light. You can't see it happening.
Despite the attention, the supermodel wife and the endless interviews, we know nothing about Brady.
When he was a kid, he'd put dots down on the lawn – the points at which to plant your feet during a five-step drop – and practice before school. No throwing. Just footwork.
You can tell. Once he'd settled himself, Brady has never taken a wrong step, on or off the field. He doesn't hug people unless he knows they'll hug him back.
Let's get the dreary statistics out of the way. He's 37 years old. He's top five all-time in most passing categories (total yards, completions, touchdowns, et al). He has the most playoff wins of any quarterback. If the Patriots take it on Sunday, he'll match his childhood ideal, Joe Montana, with four Super Bowl titles. Unlike Montana, Brady didn't have a Jerry Rice.
The teams arrayed around him were, for the most part, changeable and often forgettable. Everything hinges on Brady's ability to turn average pros into footballing weapons. Lately, they don't bother pretending to run the ball.
Given how much bigger and faster the game has become in even the past twenty years, there isn't much argument that four titles would make him the greatest quarterback of all time.
He doesn't look it on TV – not until the ball is leaving his hand. In person, Brady is bigger than you'd expect. Bouncer big.
Almost uniquely amongst athletes, he has one of those personal forcefields reserved for movie stars. It's designed to push and pull at the same time.
Everything about his body language says, 'Stay away.' Everything about the rest of him is saying, 'I am the most notable person you will ever meet. This is your only chance to talk to me.' Being in Brady's presence is more like meeting Charlize Theron than Derek Jeter.
After one game, Brady came out dressed in T-shirt that appeared made of sheet metal. An odd, hideous choice that only served to highlight his good looks – the presumptive point. Brady doesn't dress himself. He has stylists.
Everyone was dying to say something ('Look at me, Tom! Acknowledge me!'), and some mope finally did. This was in Boston. Those people are cartographically incapable of holding their tongues.
"What is that?" a guy in the front row guffawed, pointing at the shirt.
Brady caught notice of him as if from a great height.
"It's called 'fashion,'" he said. Brady zeroed in on him with his eyes, smiling in a slightly threatening way. He waited until the guy – who, as I recall, was dressed like he'd spent an hour thrashing around in a closet until his modesty was covered – turned away. Then Brady moved on.
New England lineman Vince Wilfork is also bigger than you'd expect. Two bouncers duct-taped at the hip big. He came out next wearing a ratty, ill-fitting polo. No one said anything. Wilfork's forcefield does nothing but push.
Despite the implicit draw, Brady gives you nothing. He lets football and your expectations do the work. His only real concession to public perception is his team-first persona. He likes people. No, honest. That's what they all say. (Because how do you think things'd turn out if you tried going the other way?)
In our imagination, he's permanently in tandem with coach Bill Belichick. Their cunning Derek and Clive-style routine through Deflategate – 'Balls? Air? What?' – has deepened that impression.
We'd like to believe they'll be in this together, forever.
"Is it going to make me feel any better to make an extra million? That million might be more important to the team," Brady once said of his earning power.
It ought to be noted that his wife, Gisele Bundchen, is worth more than $400-million (U.S.). In those circumstances, we might all ask ourselves, 'What's a Lambo one way or the other?' Late in the season, Brady reworked his contract to give the Patriots more cap flexibility. At least, that was the story New England spread about.
Instead, he traded the certainty of earning $24-million (U.S.) over the next three years for the freedom to leave. For the first time in his career, Brady is an unrestricted free agent.
He has reportedly grown weary of Belichick's cut-em-all roster philosophy. He wants to win, but on his terms. Mostly, he wants to play.
Last year, the Patriots drafted quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in the second round – the highest pick at that position during Brady's tenure. Could they Bledsoe him? It's possible. The end may not quite be nigh, but it's coming into sight.
In a recent New York Times profile, Brady and team owner Robert Kraft twisted themselves in knots trying to insist that this will all end well – just this one time in NFL history. That, somehow, everyone will come out of this happy.
It was left to Brady's father, the original Tom Brady, to speak truth.
"It will end badly," the elder Brady said. "It does end badly. And I know that because I know what Tommy wants to do. He wants to play till he's 70."
'Tommy.'
Later, in that same piece – which was as revealing as anything written about America's most famous athlete (so, not much) – Brady takes the writer through his kitchen. There's a menorah being displayed. Brady is a Catholic – his father went so far as to join a seminary.
"We're not Jewish," Brady says. "But I think we're into everything … I don't know what to believe. I think there's a belief system. I'm just not sure what it is."
That's an easy question to answer. Brady's belief system is professional football. It's given him a path and a raison d'être. It's defined him, while allowing him to remain undefined.
Most important, it's allowed him to be famous for all these years, while still hiding in plain sight.
Cathal Kelly