The roast of Tom Brady happened Sunday night and it was as funny, offensive and foul as many of us expected. It was a roast. This is what happens. They are not for the easily offended.

But out of all the moments from the night, from all of the tawdry jokes and one liners, there was one moment that was extremely telling. It said a lot about the relationship between Brady and someone he’s extremely close to: Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

“The Greatest Roast of All Time: The Roast of Tom Brady” was part of the annual “Netflix is a Joke” festival. It aired live on the site and as someone who is a roast geek, it was one of the better ones you’ll see. Everyone caught strays. Poor Rob Gronkowski was absolutely brutalized.

There were a number of former Brady teammates, coaches and others in attendance including Bill Belichick, Peyton Manning, Randy Moss, Drew Bledsoe, Julian Edelman, Rodney Harrison, Willie McGinest, Matt Light and Nate Solder.

Out of all the moments in the show it was one involving Kraft that was the most interesting.

Comedian Jeff Ross would be on the Mount Rushmore of offensive roast comedians. At roasts in general, no one is untouchable. To Ross, the more uncomfortable he makes people, the better. He started off one of his jokes by telling the story of how Brady, at the time a rookie, and a sixth-round pick, had the audacity to tell Kraft that drafting him was the best decision the organization had ever made.

Ross then joked that Brady added, “Would you like a massage?”

Oh. Man.

The joke was referring to Kraft’s 2019 arrest for soliciting prostitution at a massage parlor − charges that were dropped in 2020.

After the joke, Brady immediately stood, approached Ross at the lectern, and said, “Don’t say that (expletive) again.” His remark was caught on the microphone and could clearly be heard by the home audience.

It’s possible this was part of the act and Brady was acting. Maybe that will be what Brady says at some point. But it didn’t seem that way. It looked like Brady wasn’t joking. He seemed deadly serious.

Ross then said, “OK, OK.” Ross next pointed to Kraft in the audience: “He’s having fun, look at him.”

Brady looked unmoved.

There’s a simple reason why Brady was irritated. While Brady and Belichick’s relationship has been at times frayed, Brady and Kraft have been close for decades. They have remained good friends and that description might be understating the true nature of how close they are.

As the Patriots won Super Bowls, and then fractured, Brady and Kraft stayed close. At every opportunity, Kraft has publicly supported Brady, and recently, Brady did the same. Last year, when Kraft was up for the Hall of Fame, Brady publicly jumped in to support him.

“In my mind, this is a no-brainer,” Brady said of Kraft’s candidacy. “I want this bad for him because he deserves it.”

“When it comes to the league, nobody, in my opinion, has contributed − since I’ve been in the league − the way he has,” Brady said. “As an owner on all the important committees, he successfully navigated multiple labor agreements. I know in the 2011 agreement, he was instrumental in the success of it.

“I remember that picture of him and Jeff Saturday, with their arms around each other, bringing everyone back to football, which was great. You can care about that on a team level, but you can also look at that from a league level.”

To Brady, you don’t mess with Kraft. You can take all the shots you want at Belichick or Gronk. Jokes were made about Aaron Hernandez being a murderer and a bevy of a number of other tasteless quips.

Brady even made fun of himself.

“The NFL spent $20 million and found it was ‘more probable than not’ that I was ‘generally aware’ that someone may have deflated my footballs,” Brady said. “You could have just given me the $20 million and I would just told you I (expletive) did it.”

Most of the jokes on the night were funny and inappropriate and even terrible. To Brady, all these were legit. There seemed to be only one exception.

Don’t mess with Kraft.