How Did Tom Brady’s Relationship With Bill Belichick Fall Apart?

In the video, Tom Brady sits along with his legs crossed and appears into the digicam. He’s looking to specific simply how unhealthy issues had gotten between him and Bill Belichick within the past due 2010s, towards the tip in their 20-year run in conjunction with the New England Patriots.

By now, we all know how that point ended — with Brady fleeing the often-miserable send Belichick presided over for greener pastures in Tampa Bay. Belichick didn’t be offering the two-year, $50 million contract Brady sought after, one that may have given the mythical quarterback the steadiness he sought. For years, that has been considered as the primary reason why Brady didn’t go back to the Patriots.

But as a part of a brand new 10-episode documentary at the Patriots dynasty, Brady makes transparent his departure had extra to do with who was once training the group than the amount of cash he was once introduced.

“Me and coach Belichick, we did what we loved and competed for 20 years together,” Brady mentioned. “But I wasn’t going to sign another contract (in New England) even if I wanted to play until (I was) 50. Based on how things had gone, I wasn’t going to sign up for more of it.”

On Friday, Apple TV+ is unveiling “The Dynasty,” a long documentary with two episodes shedding each Friday for the following 5 weeks. It’s proclaimed to be a take a look at the Patriots between 2000 and 2020, and it covers Brady’s upward thrust to prominence after Drew Bledsoe’s harm, how the Pats navigated 3 Super Bowls in 4 years, the controversies that adopted and the way a 2nd dynasty grew prior to in the end tumbling amid fractured relationships. Those early episodes are profitable for Patriots lovers who need to relive the early years of the dynasty. And the center episodes are profitable for Patriots haters who need to enjoy some new information about Spygate, Deflategate and the group’s different indiscretions.

The Good. The Bad…and the untold tale.

The Dynasty: New England Patriots premieres February 16. pic.twitter.com/VcOAr33hrn

— Apple TV (@AppleTV) January 9, 2024

But greater than the rest, the documentary looks like a referendum on how unhealthy the Brady-Belichick courting were given and why it by no means had a storybook finishing with the 2 driving off in combination into the sundown. Even despite the fact that the interviews have been carried out months prior to the Patriots break up with Belichick, the themes in it — together with Brady, Belichick, Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and just about each well known Patriots participant over the past twenty years (aside from, particularly, Jerod Mayo) — discuss overtly in regards to the all-encompassing, dictatorial taste with which Belichick ran the Patriots.

Players, together with a number of nonetheless at the roster, reveal simply how tricky it was once enjoying for Belichick. “It was brutal,” Matthew Slater mentioned. Rob Gronkowski described pulling as much as 1 Patriot Place and no longer short of to get out of his automotive to enter paintings. Wes Welker in comparison Brady to an abused canine for regularly going again to paintings for Belichick.

ESPN made native headlines final month when a tale following Belichick’s departure from the Patriots quoted any person relating to this approaching documentary as an “infomercial” for Kraft’s Pro Football Hall of Fame candidacy. This documentary, which The Athletic was once allowed to display screen for this evaluate, isn’t that. It’s a lot more centered at the courting between Brady and Belichick and, in totality, it’s probably the most complete view but of ways depressing other folks within the construction have been within the ultimate years in their dynasty. Or no less than that’s the juiciest, maximum fascinating section.

The first few episodes contact at the get started of the Patriots dynasty. It’s nonetheless fascinating some of these years later to listen to from Bledsoe and Brady about that injury-sparked transition, even supposing the ones early episodes received’t yield many headlines. The heart episodes (particularly the fourth, 6th and 7th) center of attention on Spygate, Aaron Hernandez’s arrest and Deflategate, respectively. There are charming moments in the ones too, together with a re-enactment from Robyn Glaser (who was once just lately named the Patriots’ government vice chairman of soccer trade and senior marketing consultant to the pinnacle trainer) of smashing the Spygate tapes with a hammer.

Those early episodes are profitable for lovers who need to relive the honor days, and the center ones are fascinating, even supposing the collection bogged down and once in a while dragged somewhat in the ones portions. The documentary, it must be famous, doesn’t get into Belichick’s departure from the group final month or Mayo’s promotion to move trainer by way of Kraft’s little-known succession plan.

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For soccer lovers much less prone to benefit from the pictures of confetti falling at the Patriots, the documentary in reality choices up steam over the past 4 episodes when inspecting the splintering of Brady and Belichick’s courting.

Brady, even whilst dodging a few the extra pointed subjects introduced up through Emmy-winning director Matthew Hamachek — who additionally directed HBO’s Tiger Woods documentary in 2021 — is extra blunt than standard. So is Kraft. Belichick, predictably, doesn’t say a lot. Perhaps his maximum fascinating remark comes when dodging a query from Hamachek about why Malcolm Butler was once benched in Super Bowl LII.

“Matt, we’ve talked about that,” Belichick says with out to any extent further clarification, implying some more or less settlement between the trainer and director about averting that subject.

Former teammates, and once in a while Kraft too, are those who discuss maximum without delay about how unhealthy the connection between Brady and Belichick was once. They describe a adverse paintings atmosphere and depressing environment throughout the group’s headquarters.

The payoff from the ones ultimate 4 episodes makes the evaluation of the Patriots from 2000 to 2015 profitable. The finishing will not be relaxing for Patriots lovers. It leaves one with a sense of what may’ve been had Belichick’s taste been somewhat other or had Brady been keen to handle it somewhat longer.

But at the entire, the documentary is gripping and a profitable watch, person who unearths how unhealthy issues had gotten with the Patriots prior to Brady’s departure.

As Kraft says, “Tom and I had a number of discussions about how Bill treated him. Tommy is very sensitive. He was always looking for Bill’s approval, almost in a father-son kind of way. And that’s not Bill’s style ever to give that.”

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(Photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)