Report of team’s death premature
The end is undefeated. It comes for everyone.
It’ll come for a peerless quarterback who has prolonged his career with a unique diet. It’ll come for a genius coach who has outsmarted nearly every adversary in his path. And it’ll come for a visionary owner who already once staved off the end of his own franchise.
PATRIOTS BEAT Jeff Howe
Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft have been aware of such an outcome for years. Any year could be their last together, through age, medical issues or deteriorating performance.
But due to an argument, like what was detailed in an ESPN story yesterday that suggested this could be their final year together? That seems like a stretch. The three released a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to each other yesterday that read, “We look forward to the enormous challenge of competing in the postseason and the opportunity to work together in the future, just as we have for the past 18 years.”
Added Brady’s agent, Don Yee, “Don’t believe everything you read.”
It’s important to be reminded that Brady and Belichick have a standard quarterback-coach relationship. It’s worked to the tune of historic success with more wins and records than they could conceivably count, including five triumphs in the Super Bowl.
Like other quarterbacks and head coaches, they’ve never been best friends. But don’t take that to mean they’re enemies. They fight, and it’d be weird if they didn’t.
Through it all, Brady has extended his contract five times, and they’ve already discussed doing it again this offseason, according to sources. Those conversations began at least a year ago, as they set the stage to reduce Brady’s back-to-back $22 million cap hits in 2018 and 2019, while also offering some level of a raise, either through a signing bonus, added years or both.
The most recent extension didn’t strain Belichick’s schedule at the 2016 scouting combine, either. Brady and Kraft agreed upon the terms in a casual conversation days before the deal was set to paper. There was no urgency to finalize the contract, as Brady was still signed through 2017 at the time.
Last offseason, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was still rightly viewed as Brady’s potential heir, so Belichick didn’t bite when the Browns and others repeatedly called to attempt to acquire Garoppolo in a trade.
Belichick hoped to keep Garoppolo around for as long as possible, but there had been a clear understanding Garoppolo wouldn’t sign an extension to remain a backup. Neither Belichick nor director of player personnel Nick Caserio ever proposed a contract extension to Garoppolo, according to sources.
As Brady laid the groundwork for a campaign that could end in an MVP award, Belichick had a choice to make with Garoppolo before the Oct. 31 trade deadline. If they kept Garoppolo, they could let him walk in free agency for a third-round compensatory pick (no earlier than No. 97 overall) in the 2019 draft, or use the franchise tag at a projected cost of $22 million and trade him to the highest bidder.
The Patriots also could have franchised Garoppolo and kept him for 2018, which would have been tricky but feasible under the salary cap. But the Pats might have encountered the same hurdle a year from now, and the tag in 2019 would have cost at least $26.4 million. If Brady kept his pace in 2018, they would have used roughly 13 percent of their cap space on a backup quarterback.
The Patriots weren’t prepared to do that.
Now, to be abundantly clear, Brady never demanded the Patriots trade Garoppolo, according to sources. Not to Kraft, and certainly not to Belichick. And trading Brady was never on the table, either.
It can surely be argued Belichick should have gotten more draft capital for Garoppolo, but this wasn’t the first time he made an unpopular decision with the roster, whether it was a prompt release of safety Lawyer Milloy in 2003, or a trade of linebacker Jamie Collins in 2016 and other transactions in between.
The rift that stemmed from trainer Alex Guerrero has hung overhead for much of the season, and Belichick did scale back Guerrero’s access in recent months.
Brady and Belichick didn’t see eye to eye over that issue, and there was some tension as it came to a head, according to sources. But last month, two of those sources told the Herald the Guerrero episode didn’t drive a wedge between Brady and Belichick.
From a practical standpoint, Belichick has masterfully squashed bigger distractions over the years, and he keeps his players focused on the weekly game plan better than any coach. It would be out of character to drum up a controversy and then continue to fuel it.
Meanwhile, Brady put together his fourth season with at least 4,500 yards and 30 touchdowns and fewer than 10 interceptions. No one else in history has ever done it more than once. If he had been distracted, he had an interesting way of showing it.
Plus, for the first time since Belichick took control in 2000, the Patriots backed up a Super Bowl by claiming the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. That’d be difficult to accomplish if the dynasty was crumpling down around them.
And that’s why the end hasn’t arrived just yet.