When GQ booked Tom Brady for an hour-long, one-on-one sitdown last month, the venerable men's magazine and its correspondent, Chuck Klosterman, had hoped the result would be an intimate look at the NFL's biggest star.
That sitdown eventually became a 45-minute phone conversation that reached a sudden dead end when Klosterman attempted to converse with Brady about the Patriots' AFC Championship Game ball-deflation scandal, better known to the free world as Deflategate.
Sample interaction:
CK:But what you're suggesting is that the reality of this is subjective. It's not. Either you were "generally aware" of (ball deflation) or you weren't.
TB: I understand what you're trying to get at. I think that my point is: I'm not adding any more to this debate. I've already said a lot about this --
CK:Tom, you haven't. I wouldn't be asking these questions if you had. There's still a lack of clarity on this.
TB: Chuck, go read the transcript from a five-hour appeal hearing. It's still ongoing.
CK:I realize it's still ongoing. But what is your concern? That by answering this question it will somehow --
TB: I've already answered all those questions. I don't want to keep revisiting what's happened over the last eight months. Whether it's you, whether it's my parents, whether it's anybody else. If that's what you want to talk about, then it's going to be a very short interview.
The interview ends shortly thereafter.
Brady is famously guarded, so perhaps it shouldn't be surprising he didn't want to go down a Deflategate rabbit hole. For what it's worth, Klosterman finds Brady's guardedness to be unnecessary and suspicious. We suggest you read the entire profile, which doesn't pierce the TB12 force field, but does offer up some intelligent discourse both on Brady and what the Patriots represent to the modern NFL.
In related news, the GQ profile yielded a predictably random Brady pictorial.
Here's Tom Brady shielding himself from overcast skies, zero precipitation ... and perhaps* the NFL's over-reaching arm of justice*.
Here's Tom Brady thinking about a) The stellar nature of his existence or b) Why GQ profile writers can't just get off it already.
Here's Tom Brady becoming the first non-feline to fall asleep on a windowsill.
Here's Tom Brady wearing a designer suit jacket with matching sweatpants and, almost impossibly, pulling it off with complete ease. This guy.
Credit: GQ / Inez & Vinnodh
