Football is just as shallow — or significant, depending on how you see it — as E! the television station. Sports fans like to argue that celebrity news is so much more shallow and less intellectual than sports. But Tom Brady, the NFL's best player according to a recent poll of players, is displaying a key intersection of sports and celebrity culture that proves the obsessions with sports and celebrities are on equal playing fields (pun!): an obsession with beauty. Today in the Times, David Colman analyzes his recent, momentous haircut:

“He’s the Beyoncé of the N.F.L.,” said Jean Godfrey-June, the beauty director at Lucky magazine. “No doubt there are millions of men out there clocking his every snip.”

Athletes' appearances on the field are akin to celebrities' appearances on red carpets. The winning look must strike a balance between being functional and looking right. The right red carpet look should enhance, not take away, from the celebrity. And the right look for the field should do the same. New York salon owner John Barrett notes of Tom:

“His hair is walking into a room before him, and that’s a problem.”

If Samson Had This Arm ... [NYT]