BOSTON -- Tom Brady, for those alive and taking in external stimuli for the past few years or so, needs little introduction: He's the manly, multimillionaire, model-dating superstar quarterback for the New England Patriots.

As a football player, Brady is the real deal, and has invited legitimate comparisons with the best quarterbacks who have ever played the game. (Including Joe Montana.) He’s played in four Super Bowls, won three, and twice was a Super Bowl MVP. This past season (’07-’08) was a particularly dominant one for him and the Patriots. They went 16-0 in the regular season, and Brady set the all-time record for most touchdown passes in a single season.

Alas, in one of the most stunning upsets in sports history, they also lost to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Ariz. While very few leading sports commentators will say so publicly, there can be little question that the Pats’ demise in the desert can almost entirely be blamed on Brady’s girlfriend, supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

Why you ask? Easy: “shopping elbow.”

You see, Brady and Bundchen, while undoubtedly enjoying each other’s company and doing all kinds of fun things together, seem to enjoy one activity more than anything else -- shopping. Sure, following the Super Bowl they took up residence for more than a month in Costa Rica, where most people tend to hang out on the beach, explore the rain forest, or explore native ruins. Costa Rica is not known as a shopping mecca.

But since the two have been together, pictures routinely surface of Tom and Gisele entering or leaving swank stores with bags in tow. They could star in their own new series, “Where in the World Are Tom & Gisele Shopping Today?”

Take today’s Boston Herald. There’s the intrepid shoppers, eating gelato in Porto Fino, Italy, as they go, well, shopping, of course. There’s Gisele in a store modeling a top for Tom. (Wouldn’t you think when a model is on vacation the last thing she would want to do is model?)

And there is Tom -- and this is the crucial part for Pats fans -- in a position that is increasingly becoming as familiar as watching him call signals at the line…carrying multiple shopping bags over his forearm as he leaves the store. Plus, he’s not even using two hands -- with his other hand he’s eating an ice cream cone! Do you have any idea what the prevailing medical wisdom says about what that kind of unsupported motion can do to the human musculature?

I have no idea, but I am quite sure it is frowned on at all levels of the medical community. After all, “tennis elbow” is a very real and easily diagnosed condition. A full shopping bag can easily weigh more than the 12 or so ounces of your average tennis racket. Is it necessary to wait for the sure-to-come groundbreaking study in the New England Journal of Medicine? Of course not.

And there is no end in sight for Brady’s surely worsening condition. Clearly, this couple loves to shop. Flowers, food, clothes -- every time you see them they’re consuming something. And Tom is doing most of the carrying.

Yeah, you say, but how much can a fancy fitted Italian shirt weigh? A form-fitted, six-button, double-placard, fine Egyptian-cotton job? Granted, not much. But these are just the pictures the public sees. What about the shopping sprees we don’t see? What about those Tiffany lamps and Spanish leather loveseats that Brady is made to lug around?

I, for one, am now convinced. The Patriots lost the Super Bowl because Gisele Bundchen is a shopaholic and Tom Brady is not only enabling her, he’s clearly now got his own full-blown addiction. And that golden arm of his is paying the price.

But then, who in the world thinks this supermodel is who Tom Brady should be traipsing around the world with anyway? Save your money, save your arm, save your now-suffering reputation as a narcissistic, preening, Porto-Fino-shopping metrosexual, Tom.

Instead of buying worthless expensive crap from Park Avenue to Paris, go to a Toys ‘R Us, Tom.

Push an ergonomical shopping cart and fill it up with some fun things a little boy would love to play with. Your little boy. The one your globe-trotting shopping trips seem to prevent you from being much of a father to.

Better to put down the bags and pick up your boy. And rest assured -- not a single case of "toddler elbow" has ever been recorded.