Tom Brady is leaving New England, where things will never quite be the same

Twenty years after he arrived as an unlikely draft pick, made a team that had never won much of anything as a fourth-stringer and then proceeded to turn the New England Patriots into the NFL’s premier franchise and himself into an all-time icon … Tom Brady is leaving Foxborough.

Here in one the most surreal weeks of anyone’s life, on a St. Patrick’s Day where the Southie bars, let alone the parade, are shut down, his era with the only NFL team he ever played for ended with an Instagram post.

“I don’t know what my football future holds,” Brady wrote, “but it is time for me to open a new stage for my life and career.”

Brady’s destination is unknown. Only this is certain: When the Patriots’ next…