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Tom Brady and his gigantic coat are going to the Super Bowl

The New England Patriots quarterback dons the world's largest puffy coat, and social media dresses up the image big time.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper

We won't sugar-coat it. Tom Brady's enormous sideline jacket was the social media hit of the AFC Championship game on Sunday. Sure, Brady's New England Patriots beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 36-17, and are heading to the Super Bowl on Feb. 5 against the Atlanta Falcons.

But. That. COAT.

David vs. Goliath

Anyone playing the Patriots is always going to be considered an underdog. Even before the Steelers took on the Pats Sunday, its hometown paper had painted the Steelers as the scrappy Star Wars Rebels fighting against the Empire's Death Star. And the newspaper wasn't the only one pushing the idea of the Patriots as the unbeatable behemoth.

After the victory, while Patriots fans were elated, others felt differently.

Ad it up

Viewers of the Steelers-Patriots game may not have agreed on who to root for, but they seemed to agree that many of the commercials shown during the game were obnoxious.

Except maybe for one. The commercial where a dad gave up some football viewing time to play Barbie with his daughter earned some Twitter love.

But never mind all that. Somewhere out there, Tom Brady's coat continues to inflate.

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