Brady end run deflates Pats mystique
This was going to be about the Buffalo Bills. About how long they had been out of the playoffs, about how every social media app in the world, and the Houston Texans, and the notion that Donald Trump was anything other than a blowhard greedhead who could not destroy the world with nuclear weapons if he wanted, had all been invented since the last time the Bills were in a game that really mattered.
It was going to be about how the Cincinnati Bengals beat Baltimore to cement Buffalo’s spot, and how Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton’s charity had received over $300,000 worth of $17 donations from Buffalo, one for each year of the now-dead NFL-long playoff drought. About how the Buffalonians who have lived through disappointment after disappointment, through hard winter after hard winter, through all the sad drinking and mad, incredulous, resigned and occasionally existential sports radio, finally got to let all of it go in a pure expression of release and joy.
And then Seth Wickersham of ESPN dropped his story.
Essentially, the well-reported story says that Tom Brady has finally tired of coach Bill Belichick’s relentless, ruthless coaching style in meetings; that Belichick tired of Brady’s body svengali, Alex Guerrero, who had more and more Patriots players under his watch for his and Brady’s TB12 training and recovery method — which in Brady’s book on the subject tells people they can avoid sunburns by drinking a lot of water — and created a wedge in the organization between Guerrero and Brady and team doctors and trainers, leading to Belichick banning him from the Patriots sideline and revoking other privileges and access ... (deep, cleansing breath) . . . that the Patriots privately started to see signs of slippage and nervousness around Brady’s play, which happens with most older quarterbacks; that Brady may have, directly or otherwise, pushed owner Robert Kraft to order Belichick to trade backup quarterback and current Bay Area Jesus figure Jimmy Garoppolo to the 49ers, leaving no succession plan behind the 40-year-old Brady; that Belichick was furious even as he made the trade, and that he wondered about his future in the organization in its current form. The fences, apparently, have yet to be mended. It doesn’t mean they can’t be. It just means they haven’t been.
There’s more. You should read the whole thing.
There’s a lot here, but the essence is this: Success can send men into strange and uncharted orbits. Egos can bloom even in a place that had historically had no place for them. Some dudes sell weird medicine. And the Patriots, in the midst of arguably the greatest and most successful run of any NFL franchise in history, a franchise that has won five Super Bowls and which could win a sixth this season, a team that stayed calm while Seattle and Atlanta immolated, a franchise whose steely, stony resolve is legendary and intimidating, might be torn apart by a weirdo guru who once claimed he could cure cancer. There was always an expiry date on this partnership, but Alex Guerrero, of all people, could be the Patriots’ Yoko Ono. How delightful.
The funniest part, though, is this: Belichick is a big Trump fan. Brady’s fandom seems likely to have been shallow and tied to Trump inviting him to golf tournaments and beauty pageants, but Belichick literally wrote a letter to Trump during the campaign that sounded like Trump himself. It read, “Congratulations on a tremendous campaign. You have dealt with an unbelievable slanted and negative media, and have come out beautifully — beautifully. You’ve proved to be the ultimate competitor and fighter. Your leadership is amazing. I have always had tremendous respect for you, but the toughness and perseverance you have displayed over the past year is remarkable. Hopefully tomorrow’s election results will give the opportunity to make America great again. Best wishes for great results tomorrow.”
Jesus. So Wickersham and Tom Junod reported in November that Belichick believed he could win with Garoppolo, detailing some tension between Belichick and Brady, and said Belichick had longed to “establish a truly dynastic succession,” among other things.
Belichick responded by saying in a radio interview, “If we would like to talk about somebody that has an informed opinion about something, that’s one thing. I mean, otherwise we’re just talking about a lot of fake news here, just putting out a lot of things that are unattributable as usual.”
Fake news! He really is a Trump man. And now Wickersham is still going, and there is word he has more beyond what has been reported. The biggest news here is that Brady might have convinced the organization to trade his wonderboy successor at age 40, even as the football ops saw signs of on-field nerves creeping in. Tom Brady’s greatest victory may be that after everything, he’s the guy who beat Belichick. Hoo boy.
Last week this space went 8-8. Go Buffalo. As always, all lines could change.