Sad Tom Brady

2017reaction imageclassic

Published September 26, 2026

Sad Tom Brady is a reaction image of the New England Patriots quarterback slumped on the bench during Super Bowl 51 in February 2017, when his team trailed the Atlanta Falcons 20-0. Twitter latched onto the dejected posture and turned it into a mockery format, only for the Patriots' historic comeback win to make it one of the shortest-lived viral meme runs in recent memory1.

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Overview

Sad Tom Brady is a still and short video clip pulled from the FOX broadcast of Super Bowl 51, showing Brady hunched forward on the sideline bench with his head down while the Patriots were losing badly to the Falcons1. The image was passed around Twitter with mocking captions, often stitched with jabs about DeflateGate, the 2015 controversy over underinflated footballs in a Patriots playoff game2.

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Most edits kept the format simple: the low-angle shot of Brady looking defeated, paired with a punchline about karma, cheating allegations, or general schadenfreude toward the Patriots dynasty3. Because the picture read so clearly as a portrait of a beaten athlete, Twitter users treated it as an instant reaction template for gloating in real time during the third quarter4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter (FOX broadcast source)
Creator
Sports Illustrated
Date
2017

The source footage aired during Super Bowl 51 on February 5, 2017, when the Patriots trailed the Atlanta Falcons 20-0. Sports Illustrated's Twitter account posted the clip that evening with the caption "Tom Brady is sad," and the tweet drew more than 3,700 likes and 1,900 retweets within a day1.

Other Twitter accounts started reposting the still frame almost immediately with their own captions, many pointing back to the DeflateGate saga as the setup for the joke2. Redditor Shadowfacts985 flagged the format in r/MemeEconomy with a post titled "Sad Tom Brady memes are gonna be yuge," predicting a viral run3.

How It Spread

The Sports Illustrated tweet went out during the game and set the template within minutes, with the reply chain filling with fan edits and jokes tied to the Falcons' 20-0 lead1. By that evening, news sites including BuzzFeed5 and Refinery296 had written up the format as a viral moment, treating it as the defining image of what looked like a blowout loss for New England.

The timing killed it. The Patriots erased a 25-point deficit and won 34-28 in overtime, the largest comeback in Super Bowl history1. Twitter user @DJWinek reposted the Brady photo shortly after the final whistle with the caption "Shortest-Lived Meme / In Meme History," which itself circulated as a punchline about the format's collapse7.

After the win the image kept some life as a self-aware joke about premature celebration, but the mocking captions no longer landed the same way once Brady walked away with a fifth ring2. The meme is still cited whenever writers list examples of jokes that aged badly in real time.

How to Use This Meme

The typical Sad Tom Brady edit pairs the bench photo with a caption of gloating, a DeflateGate callback, or an unrelated punchline that recasts Brady's dejection as a reaction to something absurd4. Common convention is to leave the image untouched and let the caption carry the joke.

Frequently Asked Questions