AN OFF-SEASON OF UNCERTAINTY

It has been a challenging 18 months and I have made the difficult decision to no longer proceed with the legal process.

— Tom Brady on Facebook, July 15, 2016

Loneliness is the penalty of leadership, but the man who has to make the decisions is assisted greatly if he feels that there is no uncertainty in the minds of those who follow him, and that his orders will be carried out confidently and in the expectation of success.

— Ernest Shackleton

Tom Brady was running out of time.

No time to operate. No time to drop back in the pocket, assess the field, and find a receiver. No time to look left, look right, consider the options and make the throw. Where's Rob Gronkowski? Where's Julian Edelman? No time for that. Snap, step, throw, and hope you get lucky and find a target. And do it now, before you get crunched again.

Read the field? Hell, the way the Denver pass rush was coming against the New England offensive line, there wasn't even any time to breathe. On the afternoon of the 2015 AFC title game, Von Miller, Malik Jackson, DeMarcus Ware, and Derek Wolfe made it their mission to ensure the Patriots quarterback was going to be profoundly uncomfortable. And as the game continued, it was clear they were succeeding. The Broncos team defense was overwhelming; the secondary slowed the Patriots receivers and disrupted the timing routes. That extra moment or two forced Brady to hold on to the ball as the pass catchers tried to get separation. That led to the Broncos' pass rush getting to Brady and doing all sorts of horrible things to him, much to the delight of the sold-out Denver crowd.

I'd say they were like sharks smelling blood, but sharks have a more pleasant disposition.

"I want to eat your children," Wolfe growled at Brady at one point.

With right tackle Sebastian Vollmer on the left side because of an injury to Nate Solder, it left backup tackle Marcus Cannon against Miller, a matchup Denver was able to exploit. Compounding issues was the fact that the New England ground game was down to veteran Steven Jackson, a very nice guy who was pulled out of retirement in December by the Patriots shortly after their entire starting backfield went down for the season. For New England, facing the Broncos without LeGarrette Blount and/or Dion Lewis and a hobbled offensive line was like walking into the ring against Mike Tyson with one arm tied behind your back. (Jackson had 4 carries for 8 yards on the day. It would be the last contest of his professional career.) The leading rusher for the Patriots that afternoon was Brady, with a scant 13 yards. And most of that yardage came as a result of the quarterback running for his life.

The Broncos hit Brady 20 times on 56 dropbacks, eventually sacking him four times. The only reason they didn't have more sacks? Brady had a handful of pass attempts that were simply balls flung wildly downfield when he was already in the grips of a Broncos pass rusher.

"It's our job to hit the quarterback," Wolfe said after the game, "and we did our job well tonight."

All that being said, the last few minutes of regulation were among the finest of Brady's and Gronkowski's careers, as they managed to almost single-handedly keep the Patriots in the game. Down 20–12 with just under five minutes left, a fourth-down heave for Gronkowski in the end zone was off the mark. That looked like it might have been the end of it, but New England managed to get the ball back, and drove down the field again with less than two minutes to go.

A fourth-down reception that kept the chains moving late in regulation and an against-all-odds touchdown catch with 12 seconds left — both from Brady to Gronkowski — were amazing plays. The fourth-down catch was down the seam where Gronkowski split a pair of defenders and went tumbling forward after the reception, holding onto the ball. Then, there was the late touchdown, where the big tight end maneuvered between two Denver defenders to make a terrific catch to draw the Patriots to within two, 20–18, with 12 seconds left. (Kicker Stephen Gostkowski missed an extra point earlier in the game, which forced New England to have to go for two late.) But the 2-point conversion was off the mark, as the pass for Edelman was tipped away and eventually picked off by Denver defensive back Bradley Roby. (The thing that creased some New England fans? A rewatch of the 2-point conversion appeared to show Gronkowski open on the play.)

And so, it was over. The Patriots went into the off-season, while the Broncos went to San Francisco, beat the Panthers, and got to carry off the Super Bowl 50 trophy. Much to the consternation of New England fans everywhere, that also meant that Peyton Manning got the fairy-tale ending he was hoping for: a Super Bowl victory and send-off smooch from his buddy Papa John before he rode off into the sunset.

As for Brady, he went home. Fully aware of the fact that he was about to turn thirty-nine in August, he reset the countdown clock on his own gym for Super Bowl LI, a year away in Houston. Now, both literally and metaphorically, the veteran was well aware the clock was ticking. Super Bowl trips, especially at this stage of a quarterback's career, were precious. Brady and Manning were part of a short list of quarterbacks who had won Super Bowls after their thirty-fifth birthday. (Johnny Unitas, Jim Plunkett, Roger Staubach, and John Elway were the others.) He was going to do all he could to make sure he would get a crack at another one.

But the off-season was not going to be so easy. Brady had gotten his Deflategate punishment pushed back when Judge Richard Berman cleared the way for him to play in 2015, but in the spring of 2016, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan ruled 2–1 he must serve a four-game suspension to start the upcoming regular season. That left him looking for one last legal Hail Mary: Was he going to try and take it to the Supreme Court? Would he accept the ruling? Spring stretched into summer, and while the Patriots went through their off-season program, it remained unclear what was going to happen.

Ultimately, the answer popped up in everyone's Facebook feed on the morning of July 15, 2016. He was giving up the fight. Roughly two weeks before the start of training camp, for the quarterback and the team, there was finally clarity and closure. With Brady's...