Five Years Later, Tom Brady Bares His Soul About the 'Natural Tension' Between Him and Belichick That Caused Him to Leave

Kevin C. Cox. Getty Images.

It's been five years. Five, long, grueling, emotionally exhausting years since #Braxit happened. The actual anniversary was last week, March 17th. At 8:30am, to be precise:

And let us never forget what came next. Shutdowns. Lockdowns. The NCAA tournaments were canceled. Schools closed. Church services banned. Businesses going under. Worldwide economic collapse. A spike in depression and substance abuse. All just like I predicted would happen if Tom Brady ever left New England.

But I ignored it because I had no intention of ruining anyone's Irish Christmas, my own especially. 

But mainly because I'm still processing it, even to this day. I'm blessed to have never been a child of divorce. Or to have raised children of divorce. The Thorntons mate for life, for which I'm eternally grateful. If this is how I'm dealing with a football coach and a quarterback splitting up after an impossibly long and successful collaboration, I can't imagine what the real thing is like. Even if the idea of two Christmases and two birthdays does sound pretty sweet. 

And so it's not only fitting but most welcome to hear Brady explain what he went through. In a way he couldn't at, say, his Netflix roast or his Patriots Hall of Fame induction. In writing. On his own website:

Source - For me, [free agency] was a creeping decision that lived passively in the back of mind for 2-3 years until March of 2020 when a whirlwind of a few days made me realize that a decision was coming sooner rather than later. The reality was, after twenty years together, a natural tension had developed between where Coach 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.

Interestingly, he then expanded on what his priorities were in going to Tampa. Just to beat a dead metaphor, how he chose his new, post-divorce family:

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.

I include that last part in a blog about Brady and Belichick because I think it's significant. It's a call back to the earlier paragraph's references to "where Coach Belichick and I were headed in our careers" and "reassessing our priorities." In 2019, Belichick offered Brady a two year extension filled with incentives, hedging his bet when it came to investing in a 42-year-old. His priorities were to stick to what he'd always done, which was to build his team around a few key players with team-friendly deals and a broad middle class of role players. 

Brady's priorities likely changed over the course of that season. Having an offense consisting of Julian Edelman (100 catches, 1,100 yards), followed by four receivers (Phillip Dorsett, UFDA rookie Jakobi Meyers, Mohamed Sanu and Josh Gordon) who couldn't crack 30 receptions, and a 39 year old Ben Watson (17 catches) at tight end. That'll make even the remotest possibility of throwing to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin look like it's worth turning your career legacy inside out and uprooting your family for. Even if you could make more money elsewhere. 

As far as the coaching aspect, even as a devout Belichickian, I can't fault his decision. At that point in his professional life, Brady no doubt needed the low key, casual, 2-ply soft approach of a Bruce Arians. Even the mentally toughest athlete of all time - which he unquestionably is - will hit his limit of hearing himself get shredded during every film study session and every other practice rep. In Arians, he found the perfect opposite number to Belichick. Someone who would more or less step aside, let him install the system he had perfected in New England, not make any waves, and happily go along for the ride. 

All the while, Tampa provided what every working person wants toward the end of their careers that New England can't. That Belichick aggressively had zero interest in: Good weather. In that way, Brady is no different than all the 65-year-old snowbirds from Weymouth and Revere flocking to JetBlue Park for Red Sox games. He was just very much still on the job. And the coach who refused to use the practice bubble behind Gillette in January wasn't ever going to accommodate him without fundamentally changing his ways. Old dog. No new tricks. 

It still pains me. I'll never get over watching the GOAT throwing touchdown passes to Antonio Brown and Gronk in the Super Bowl. Receiving the Lombardi Trophy as the only one on the field not required to wear a stupid Covid mask. Or subsquently tossing said trophy to another boat while in a happy, drunken stupor. But the more it gets explained, the easier it'll be to finally find it in my heart to accept it. So more of this, please. And until then, I'll just keep looking at highlights like the one in that photo at the top of this post and dream of the good times we once shared.