After deciding against taking the case to the Supreme Court in one final bid to have the sanction overturned, Brady will serve the four-game suspension that commissioner Roger Goodell handed down in May 2015. So this was it until early October for Brady, who won't be allowed any contact with the team for the duration of the suspension.
It is a wistful yet oddly reinvigorating time for Brady, who obviously is saddened at not having the chance to play the sport he loves.
"It will be tough to watch, but it will be fun to watch in some ways, to see what it looks like when you're not there," Brady said this week about his impending suspension. "That's a different perspective. Hopefully I can use that perspective and then come back with better perspective, saying, 'Wow, I really noticed some things that maybe I wouldn't have seen had I been there.' So that's kind of what I'm going to try to do."
In the meantime, there was one last chance to feel what it's like to run the Patriots' offense, and Brady willingly accepted coach Bill Belichick's call to play the entire first half. The four-time Super Bowl champion got some game action in before being banished for his alleged role in the Deflategate scandal.
Brady looked alternately rusty (he threw an interception on his second series and was not accurate with several early passes) and excellent (his perfectly lofted pass to running back DJ Foster was good for 30 yards and he hit Keshawn Martin with a 7-yard touchdown pass for his only score of the night). He completed 16 of 26 passes for 166 yards.
It's worth noting that he looked more comfortable as the game wore on. It's the kind of comfort zone we're so used to seeing from the 39-year-old quarterback, who will be playing his 17th NFL season once he returns Oct. 9 to face the Browns in Cleveland. There's no reason to think Brady won't recapture the dominance he has shown since first taking over for Drew Bledsoe when the veteran quarterback was knocked out of the second game of the 2001 season by Jets linebacker Mo Lewis.
Brady has been remarkably consistent over the years, particularly as he has gotten older. Since the start of the 2010 season, Brady has thrown 203 touchdown passes and only 51 interceptions, and the Patriots have gone 75-21 in that span.
He is playing at an age when most quarterbacks either are no longer playing or are battling a decline in performance. Yet there doesn't seem to be an impending drop-off, in part because Brady trains so diligently and tries to remake himself.
He now faces an unprecedented challenge in the days ahead, when he will be banished from the premises and forced to watch from afar as his teammates face the Cardinals, Dolphins, Texans and Bills before he returns against Cleveland.
It will be an awkward time for Brady, who hasn't divulged where he'll be or what he'll do during the suspension. Wherever he is, though, football will continue to consume almost his every waking moment.
The fascinating career of one of the most fascinating players in NFL history soon will take a month-long hiatus. Once Brady returns, so will the drama of what happens after his layoff. One thing we've learned after all this time watching the man: It's unwise to bet against him.
