Everyone thought that Tom Brady Subway commercial was very strange, and they were right

What exactly is going on here?

We are never getting rid of Tom Brady, In fact, there will only be more Tom Brady. Tom Brady, despite being 44 years old, is somehow better at football and also handsomer than ever. He should be digging through a closet looking for a heating pad because he tweaked his back on the “hill” (there is no incline, really) while cutting the grass (with a self-propelled mower), but instead he is absolutely torching the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL opener.

Tom Brady is so ubiquitous — you thought that 10-part documentary in the works was a little much? — that he is now being used as a spokesman for A FOOD HE DOES NOT EVEN EAT.

We are all thinking back 20 years to the defining day of our era. How could we not?

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the NFL postponed Week 2’s games. The season re-started with Week 3, on Sept. 23, and we were all relieved, if perhaps nervous, that we could gather, that the flag could be unfurled, the songs sung, the games played. We could inch toward a future hastily revised by planes plunging to where they weren’t supposed to be.

That was the week when Drew Bledsoe took a hit so hard that he began bleeding internally, thus giving Brady, the 199th draft pick from the 2000 draft, a chance to start playing professional football.

Nobody was really thinking clearly back then, about anything. But I’m confident that if you’d happened to mutter to somebody — there was a lot of muttering then, we were lost and trying to find the words — that in 20 years that unheralded new Patriots QB would have seven Super Bowl rings (and 5 MVPs!) and widely be considered the best ever AND be known for his strict diet AND be hocking Subway, it all would have felt incomprehensible, even at a time when most things felt incomprehensible.

I mean, who even would have believed that Subway would still be slinging its cardboard-tasting bread and slimed-up old lunch meat topped with wilting vegetables and dubious sauces? We were supposed to move forward.

But here, as they say, we are. (Sorry, Subway. It’s very hard to slander Tom Brady, he’s too perfect. You’ll have to take the hits.)

It’s an interesting choice to have a pitchman whose brand is built partially on not eating the primary component of the thing you are trying to convince people to buy. I would never consume this unhealthy food or drive this tiny car or sleep on this lumpy bed or stay at this third-rate resort or wear this poorly fitted suit but for you, the one with the heating pad on the sore back, it’s plenty!

Wait. That’s most ads, I guess.

The jokes, as they do, came quickly.

(Good one, Andy!)

Let’s take a closer look, but not too close a look, at one particular part of the commercial that stood out for people.

Yeah. The imagery here does not feel subtle at all. You are not alone, Rey. This misery is shared.

You might recall that Brady’s former coach with the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick, has also been paid to convince you to eat at Subway.

(YouTube made me watch an ad before I could view this ad, in case you’re wondering whether any moment of your existence can ever pass without somebody trying to sell you something.)

What do these two commercials add to the debate over which man was more important to the New England Patriots dynasty? I’m afraid they get us no closer to resolution. I’m as confused about this question as I’ve ever been about anything (and let me tell you’ve I’ve spent a not-insignificant amount of time trying to figure out what exactly that meat is that Subway calls “steak”; I’m not a person interested in avoiding life’s difficult quandaries.)

On the one hand, Subway tells us, you should embrace Bill Belichick’s sartorial decisions. On the other, Subway says, you should cave to the cravings Tom Brady has staved off for so long, with great success.

None of it merges. There is no call or response. All that was entwined remains so, in knots we couldn’t make and most certainly cannot untie. All we’re left with is this:

Man, Tom Brady looks good. He is good. So good. But I’m still going to be defeated by bread, I might eat an entire loaf, god bread is so good, it won’t be Subway bread but it will be a nice bread, and it’s going to be incredible, might even use some butter, not sure, but I’ll get to it right after I call somebody about cutting my grass for me.

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