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FOXBORO, Mass. — At some point, the New England Patriots will need to untether themselves from the past and move on from the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady years. But even so, those years were so good that occasional steps back in time remain dewy and sweet.

So, yes, the Patriots chose Brady to be the first employee in franchise history to be honored with a statue. The unveiling took place Friday night at Gillette Stadium as an undercard to the Patriots’ preseason opener against the Washington Commanders, except that the undercard will be remembered long after the game has been forgotten. Brady made sure of that — not with any of the humble, aw-shucks remarks he delivered after the unveiling, but for the delicious one-liner he smooshed into the faces of long-suffering New York Jets fans.

First, he rolled out a set-up line about how Patriots fans “earned every single one of these (Super Bowl) banners that fly above this stadium forever.”

He then paused for a half beat. Brady, remember, always did have great timing.

And then …

“But in the end, this statue isn’t just for Pats fans,” Brady said. “It’ll also give all the Jets fans something to throw their beers at as they leave the stadium every year.”

Another pause, this one for a full beat. Timing, timing . . .

“Probably in the second quarter,” Brady said. “Maybe the third.”

On any other occasion, it would have been dismissed as just another easy jab at the Jets. From talk radio to Elks Club banquets, people have been making Jets jokes for more than half a century. But this wasn’t any other occasion. What Brady did was turn his own statue into a forever reminder of all the great things the Patriots did during the Belichick/Brady years, while also pointing out, through subtext, that about all the Jets did during those years was contribute the Butt Fumble to NFL lore.

Whether or not he intended it, Brady essentially blew a kiss at Belichick with that Jets quip. Everyone knows how much Belichick hates the Jets, from his infamous decision to resign as “HC of the NYJ” to former Jets coach Eric Mangini dropping a dime on Belichick’s 2007 “Spygate” antics. And on this night, we had Brady doing a solid for his old coach with a shot at the Jets.

Brady did manage to mention Belichick by name, and he did so with another planned comedy bit that involved an imaginary phone call.

Beginning the bit with a shoutout to sculptor Jeff Buccacio, Brady said, “As for this statue itself, Jeff, you and your team did an incredible job. Seriously. It is so accurate, so detailed . . .”

Pause.

“Hold on one second,” Brady said, pulling out a phone and holding it to his ear.

“Hello?”

Pause.

Pause.

“OK.”

Pause.

“Sorry, Jeff, that was coach Belichick. He said there’s still room for improvement.”

The timing was again perfect. The material, not so much. The Jets joke was better and more meaningful. Remember, there’s a longstanding Belichick-Brady football campfire in which people sit around and tell stories about how it was Brady who won those six Super Bowls for the Patriots and that Belichick was the lucky coach who went along for the ride. Sensible people know the story lacks nuance — Belichick crafted some stunning defenses during those days — but insensible people go with it anyway . . . just because. But now, Brady and Belichick stand united through that statue. And that’s what good art does: it encourages us to seek the beauty within, or something like that. (I’m no art critic.)

The day will come when Belichick gets his own Gillette Stadium statue. As will Patriots owner/patriarch Robert Kraft, who attended the Brady statue unveiling Friday night and said, “(Brady) demanded excellence of himself, and made everyone around him better. Tom wasn’t just the face of our franchise. He was the true heartbeat. It’s hard to overstate what Tom accomplished. He didn’t just rewrite the record books. He practically authored a new volume.”

And so on.

The Brady bronze, which shows the quarterback with a raised, celebratory fist, stands 17 feet tall. The figure weighs 1,800 pounds and has a granite base that weighs 10,500 pounds, for a total weight of 12,300 pounds. It’s located at Patriot Place Plaza near the Patriots Hall of Fame and Kraft’s beloved lighthouse.

Will it turn out in the years to come that the Brady statue is a quarter-inch taller than the Belichick statue? Will the Kraft statue tower over the Brady and Belichick statues?

Football fans/art critics, no doubt, will study the three statues for the answers to these questions. They will inspect the statues for secret meanings and subtle messaging. But that’s all later on. This is 2025, and the Brady bronze is a solo act at Gillette Stadium. It pays homage to arguably the greatest quarterback in history. And thanks to Brady, it’s a 12,300-pound poke in the eye at Jets fans.

It might, however, behoove the Patriots to keep an eye on the statue whenever the Jets are in town. What was it Brady said? That Jets fans might throw their beers at it as they leave the stadium?

That might not be all they do to it.

(Photo: Billie Weiss / Getty Images)