Fasten your seat belts, here we go.

It looks like the Football Genie is going to grant us one of our two wishes – that the NFL will apparently allow free agency to go on as scheduled.

That means you can pamper and tamper beginning today at noon if you’re an NFL owner/general manager.

The other wish? Well, that’s more complicated, and it’s certainly possible that for New England Patriot fans, the Tom Brady era could end today.

We never thought it would get this far. But apparently it has.

Apparently, the rumblings coming from the Brady camp through media closest to it are saying bye-bye Brady. Tampa? L.A. Chargers? Who knows, although we know now after the Tennessee fell for Ryan Tannehill’s scam and signed him to foolish money, it won’t be the Titans.

But all the foolishness we’ve had to listen to may finally stop. Instead, it looks like we may, besides having to deal with this awful virus crisis, have what hard core Patriot die-hards feel is a an even worse situation, the loss of their beloved TB12.

Hard to fathom, isn’t it? On one hand, given what we’ve tried to decipher from Bill Belichick’s apparent or rumored hard stance on a one year deal with less dollars than this past season, it makes sense for Brady to bolt. He’ll get more on the open market.

On the other hand, you have to wonder, why now? Why was this contract such a huge, huge issue? Yeah, great, the New Orleans Saints can keep Drew Brees in the fold for a huge chunk. Hmmm, they’ve won one Super Bowl with him. And that was back on Feb. 7, 2010.

The Patriots and Tom Brady seemed to always have this understanding: You take less than market value, because that will help you win more. We’ll be able to spread the wealth under the salaray cap.

Many love to make fun of that idea. Well, gee, nine Super Bowl appearances with six Lombardi Trophies in 20 years certainly sounds pretty good, eh? Eight straight AFC title games? Not good enough?

The Patriots have tried to play it cool with a quarterback in his early 40s. OK, perhaps they should have sweetened the pot a little bit last August. But to be honest, the way things have been done at Gillette has worked.

The players around the league know: If you want to win, you head to Foxborough, Mass. If you want to get paid, you head anywhere else. Maybe you’ll be on a playoff team, maybe not.

OK, say Brady wants to stay with the Patriots. It behooves he and the team to agree to a deal before Wednesday afternoon. Once Tom Brady officially becomes a free agent by Wednesday at 4 p.m., he also carries a $13.5 dead cap hit. Add that to his deal. If there’s a deal before then, the dead cap hig on the voided cap years is $6.75 million. Less cap hit, more to spend on players to catch your passes, TB12.

It behooved the Patriots to get something done beforehand, so they certainly have to take blame for that. Unless TB12 just wants teams like the Bucs and Chargers to whisper sweet somethings in his ear.

The wild card here is the owner. Will Robert Kraft step in, push his trusted head coach out of the way and try to broker a deal before Brady becomes a Charger or a Buccaneer? Reportedly he won’t be a 49er (that idea was dumb from the start).

Let’s take the surrounding cast out of the equation. Brady can’t say the Patriots didn’t try to help him last year. They made fools of themselves in bringing in the highly talented and highly disturbed Antonio Brown. They went out and got Mohammed Sanu, then blundered putting him on punt return. Oops.

We experienced a near six month sulk from the quarterback last season. Hey, if he’s not happy, then best of luck. Maybe Kraft knows that Brady just wants to move on. Sad but true, right?

Either way, the player movement (agreeing to terms but no signed deals) begins today. Tom Brady could unofficially agree to be a member of a team other than the Patriots sometime today and it could be official on Wednesday when free agent signings can take place. No press conference, etc., given the circumstances. The full page ad in Boston/New England papers will be there sometime in a couple of weeks.

We’re already living our daily lives in a bad sci-fi movie. And soon Patriots fans could be living a nightmare they never really wake up from.

Tom King may be reached at 594-1251 or tking@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow King on Twitter (@Telegraph_TomK).

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