ESPN's Adam Schefter's report that quarterback Tom Brady still hasn't committed to play in 2018 is merely the latest installment in an offseason of upheaval at Gillette Stadium.

Glen Farley The Enterprise @GFarley_ent

We interrupt the Rob Gronkowski soap opera to bring you … the continuation of the Tom Brady soap opera.

The latest installment in this offseason of upheaval that’s engulfed a Patriots franchise that was once the model of NFL stability found ESPN’s Adam Schefter, citing league sources, reporting on Wednesday that the 40-year-old Brady “still has not committed to playing in 2018, even though people who know him believe he will be back for the coming season.”

Not a whole lot of news there, aside from the fact that any report with Brady’s name attached to it is going to be viewed as news – particularly a couple of days after the team’s voluntary offseason conditioning program kicked off at Gillette Stadium with neither their franchise quarterback nor their five-time Pro Bowl tight end on hand to sign the attendance sheet as they customarily are.

And so the mystery grows, although Mike Florio may have quelled it a bit.

Hours after Schefter’s report, Florio took to Profootballtalk.com to report that “per a source with knowledge of the situation, Brady already has made arrangements to get together with some of his teammates between the end of the offseason program and the start of training camp in order to better prepare for the season to come.”

If true, it's hard to fathom that Brady would be intending to chuck the ball around with Julian Edelman and the guys if he were ready to call it a career.

All in all, though, welcome to the way football life in Foxboro has pretty much been since the night of Feb. 4 in Minneapolis when the team’s leader in defensive snaps during the regular season, a 100-percent participant in its first two postseason games, was forced to sit and watch while his comrades were rendered utterly defenseless in a 41-33 Super Bowl loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Cornerback Malcolm Butler has moved on (to Tennessee as a free agent), of course, but it seems there’s no moving away from these unsettled times at One Patriot Place.

High-profile free agents like Nate Solder, Danny Amendola, Dion Lewis and Butler have left, some of them admitting that, yes, life under Bill Belichick can be difficult, all the while the actions – and inactions – of Brady and Gronkowski continue to suggest that there is a rift between those two players and the head coach and/or organization (due to earn $9 million this season and $10 million next, the feeling here is the best tight end in the game is in a “show me the money” mode).

Need we rewind the final episode of the “Tom vs. Time” Facebook Watch documentary to the final installment when Gisele Bundchen said her husband just wants to “go to work and feel appreciated and have fun” or go back in time to Gronkowski’s Instagram post in which he urged the Miami-bound Amendola to “Be FREE, Be HAPPY?”

Clearly, all is not well at One Patriot Place.

So, where is this all headed?

It’s hard to believe that Gronkowski, who, yes, has had more than his share of physical issues over his football-playing career, would retire on the south side of 30 (he’ll turn 29 next month), even harder to believe that Brady, who in the past has spoken of a desire to play well into his 40s, would suddenly drop his retirement notice on the team with the start of the draft now just one week away.

Hall of Fame nominees: The three of them share a common bond.

Now one of them will separate himself from the other two.

Offensive tackle Matt Light, defensive end Richard Seymour and linebacker Mike Vrabel, teammates on the first three Super Bowl championships in franchise history, are the three nominees for this year’s induction into the Patriots Hall of Fame. This marks the first time that three teammates have emerged as finalists in the same year.

Selected by a vote of the hall of fame’s nomination committee held at Gillette Stadium on April 4, the Patriots announced on Wednesday that the three had emerged as this year’s nominees.

Their fate is in the fans’ hands now.

The voting public will have until May 14 to cast its votes for the player who will become the 27th person enshrined into the Patriots Hall of Fame on the team’s web site, www.patriots.com.

The induction ceremony, which is free and open to public, will be held on the NRG Plaza outside The Hall at Patriot Place later this year at a date and time to be announced.