Julian Edelman Says Tom Brady May Be Putting Heat on Patriots with Cryptic Photo

Consider New England Patriots wideout Julian Edelman among those searching for meaning in Tom Brady's latest tweet.

After the free-agent quarterback-to be posted a photo of himself walking through a tunnel toward (or away?) from the field, Twitter exploded with every type of conspiracy theory on what it could mean. Edelman is no different—and, no, he doesn't have the answer either.

But he was willing to give it a shot. 

Edelman told The Athletic's Daniel Kaplan on Friday:

"This is just me thinking out loud, I don't know, by any means but hey, maybe he's putting a little heat on, you know, the team. Or he's putting heat on the free-agency market. There's so many things you can do with a f--king picture. With no caption, yeah, actually, if you have a platform, especially if you have a platform, right, you know, and it's crazy.

Edelman said of the stadium tunnel post:

"It's a subliminal message, which we all assume. We don't know. I don't know. We all want to know. But that's the cool thing about social media. He puts a picture out, no caption, no nothing. Everyone's going f--king nuts. Like, 'There's no caption! What's he doing? Is he entering? Is he leaving?' And it's just this, such, like, so much excitement around a picture. It's nuts."

The prevailing thought Thursday was that the photo is related to some sort of ad that will run during the Super Bowl, though there's little to back up that notion. 

If Edelman is correct and Brady really is using social media as a way to light a fire under the Patriots brass to get a new contract, it's easily one of the best uses of the platform in sports yet. 

As of Saturday, not even New England owner Robert Kraft had an idea if a deal would get done. When asked on the NFL Awards red carpet if the six-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback was returning to the Patriots, the owner had nothing new to report.

"You gotta ask him," Kraft said. "I sure hope so."