Irreversible damage? Tom Brady confirms ‘tension’ with Bill Belichick in New England
Half a decade has elapsed since one of the worst days in New England Patriots history: The departure of legendary quarterback Tom Brady. The recent five-year anniversary of that moment prompted Brady to take to his blog, The 199, to reflect on that day and what led him to leave.
“The reality was, after twenty years together, a natural tension had developed between where Coach [Bill] Belichick and I were headed in our careers, and where the Patriots were moving as a franchise. It was the kind of tension that could only be resolved by some kind of split or one of us reassessing our priorities,” Brady wrote.
The so called ‘natural tension’ between Brady and Belichick has been discussed ad nauseam over the last five years. However, this is the first time either side — or really anyone close to the situation for that matter — has directly addressed and confirmed the rift.
What exactly caused the tension? One can speculate, but as Brady seemed to suggest after 20 years of working with each other, their differences may have just compounded and eventually came to a head.
Most interesting is the perspective Brady gives to the things that mattered to him at that time and what criteria he used to reach his final destination, Tampa Bay:
“What I ended up with was a list of about twenty things that I then ranked and graded on a weighted scale from 1 to 3. The presence of skill players was a 3 in terms of importance, for example, and the Bucs graded out as a 3 because of guys like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. The same was true for the head coach. That was a 3 in importance, and Tampa scored a 3 with Bruce Arians. Game day weather was a 2, practice weather was a 3. Financial compensation was on the list, obviously, but it wasn’t first, it probably wasn’t even top 10, and it definitely didn’t rank as a 3 in importance.
“In the end, I chose Tampa, almost exactly five years ago now, because, in the aggregate, it graded out higher than New England along those twenty or so dimensions. It’s not much more complicated than that,” Brady asserts.
One may never know how far behind Tampa, New England landed, nor how much the tension with Belichick tainted his grading of the Patriots, but at least the suspicions about the two’s relationship are finally confirmed.
But, the final lasting question still seems to stand: After five years has the tension between Brady and Belichick become ‘water under the bridge,’ or is it irreversible damage that will forever taint the historic relationship?
Luke Graham is a digital sports content co-op for 98.5 the Sports Hub. He is currently a sophomore at Northeastern University studying communications and media studies. Read all his articles here, and follow him on X @LukeGraham05.
