I talked to Tom Brady about his fake newspaper and I’m worried there are no answers

MINNEAPOLIS — Tom Brady is sitting in the middle of a media forest. Trees of tripods and canopies of cameras branch out before a podium that holds a table, a microphone, a name plate that says his name, and a backdrop that says SUPER BOWL LII. It’s the Tuesday before the biggest NFL game of the year, and every sports reporter in the world has crammed themselves into every inch of space around The Prince of New England, The Billiest of G.O.A.T.s, the Eater of No Nightshades, the Hailer of Marys.

A man with a pencil behind his ear tries to push his way past me and almost knocks one of the cameras over in the process. I box him out and stand my ground. I worked for this spot. I’ve earned this spot. For months now, I’ve been writing about the TB Times, the fake newspaper Brady “publishes” every time the Patriots win. Never mind the fact that the TB Times, AKA the Tampa Bay Times, AKA a real newspaper, already exists. When you’re Brady, you just take what you want.

For those of you who haven’t also been plummeting down this bizarre rabbit hole with me, let me briefly explain what’s been going on (for a more in-depth explanation, start here) and what it’s done to me. Two years ago, Brady’s social media started becoming ... funny. He — well, his Social Media Guy, known as S.M.G. in this series — posted a picture of Brady riding the Broncos’ logo before the AFC Championship game against Denver. The Patriots lost, but fans loved it: That photoshop got more engagement than anything Brady had ever put online. I tracked down S.M.G. after that post went viral, but he didn’t want to go on the record. He still doesn’t.

In 2016, Brady joined Instagram, and started posting cartoons from his fake newspaper featuring jokes about the teams the Patriots had just beaten. Because New England is #blessed, we’ve gotten one basically every week since. Over time, I noticed that a story had started to play out — a reptile named Croc kept appearing in the pictures, all of which were drawn by an artist who signed them “D.K.”

I eventually tracked down D.K., but he also won’t go on the record with me, either. Most of the pictures are very well done, but they look like someone dropped a bunch of acid before they fired up Adobe Illustrator.

This might seem like a simple story: A quarterback has a running gag online, and I, a sportswriter, have written blogs about it. But it’s more than that. It’s a trail with no end, yet I’ve become obsessed with finding a conclusion to this whole thing. I’ve tried so hard to trace the threads of the story that I’ve found myself going through Bill Hader’s entire acting career and Googling the outfits he wore in every movie. I’ve searched the back end HTML of TBTimes.org. I’ve analyzed Greek myth. I’ve zoomed in on Brady’s eyebrows. I’ve tracked down the artist’s friends and messaged them on Instagram. I’ve drawn my own cartoons.

It’s the end of the season now, and I want answers. Who is Croc?! Since no one will give me any, I’m going straight to the source: Brady himself. It’s nearly impossible to get a question in at these media circuses, but I’ve put myself in the best position to try.

One thing you should know: I’ve lost my voice. I can’t really talk right now, which makes it hard to yell out a question in a scrum, but I’m trying. I croak out “Tom!” every time he finishes talking and looks around for the next question, but he’s onto his fourth reporter, and he hasn’t so much as looked in my froggy direction. I try again — “Tom, Tom,” I say, and he looks at me.

It’s my turn.

“Tom, you’ve had a fake newspaper on social media, the TB Times,” I begin.

“Yup,” Brady says.

“Can you tell me a little bit about how that started, how involved you are, and what the crocodile represents?” I croak.

“Well it was I just thought it was fun at the start of last season, something that the fans would enjoy,” Brady tells me.

“Mmm hmm,” I say.

“And I thought that was kind of a great way to commemorate some wins,” he continues. “Some of the funnier ones came when we lost, and we didn’t get a chance to put ’em out, but maybe someday I’ll show you some of those ones that we were going to put up but we ended up losing the game. But it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve got a couple guys I work with that work really hard and obviously I’m not the one doing the drawing —”

[Me, in my head: Yeah, I know, it’s a guy named D.K. who won’t talk to me]

“— but they work really hard, run ideas by me, and I let them go with it, so,” he says.

Brady looks around for the next question, but I’m not going to let him get off this easy.

“Any hint as to who the crocodile is?” I ask, my voice as scaly as Croc’s skin.

“No, but there might be a reveal after this game,” Brady says.

This part is embarrassing, but there’s tape and film of this, so I have to tell you that it’s at this point I involuntarily let out an, “Ooooooo!”

“We’ll see,” Brady says.

“OK,” I say.

Here are the questions I didn’t get to ask him:

So here’s the deal. These answers were not conclusive. All they did was confirm that Brady is not the one drawing these cartoons, which I already knew. He said that we might get to see some of the comics that didn’t get posted, but we already have. He didn’t tell me who Croc was. He didn’t even really promise to tell me who Croc is, ever, because he said there might be a reveal.

Brady’s evasive answer reinforces my original theory: These guys don’t have a grand plan. Croc doesn’t represent anything, and now they’re scrambling to make this all make sense. In fact, for the past few weeks, they’ve stopped putting Croc in the pictures altogether. They’ve appeared to abandon their narrative entirely. We last saw Brady, Croc, a lab-coat-clad Gronk, a punk-rock puffer fish, and a jazz turtle in an undersea lair off the coast of Miami, having just wrested the plans for a galactic laser away from a gang of fidget spinner-obsessed dolphins.

Deep breath.

We’ve drifted way off course from that story, which somehow also involved Bill Hader, Billy Crystal, Will Smith, and Bill Murray, as well as a hot tub salesman, an Aztec temple, a guy resembling Peter Pan, and Greek gods. Who knows, maybe at this point they’re just trolling me. I don’t want to think these blogs have had that much sway, but given how much I’ve bugged D.K. and S.M.G., I don’t want to rule out the possibility.

Look, I hope I’m wrong. I want resolution as much as you do, and have my fingers crossed that all the characters will come back eventually and tie up theses loose (frayed, honestly) ends. You better believe that the first thing I do after the Patriots win on Sunday (oh come on, you’re thinking it, too) will be to continually refresh Brady’s Instagram until a new TB Times pops up, and then send D.K. more frantic messages begging him to talk to me.

Because, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, noted football enthusiast and actual savior of the game: “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty, and obsessing over a famous quarterback’s fake newspaper to the point that you feel like you’re on drugs.”