Belichick, Brady ‘learned to co-exist’
‘Alphas’ brought historic and complex greatness
Highly competitive. Super intelligent. Maniacally driven. Detail-oriented. Impervious to pressure.
That would be an apt description of Tom Brady, and a fair representation of the head coach who let him leave. When it comes to their football identities, Brady and Bill Belichick are very similar.
So what happens when you put both of them together, as the NFL will again Sunday?
Fireworks.
“They’re two alphas that learned to co-exist for 20 years,” said former Patriots lineman Damien Woody, when asked to describe the Belichick-Brady relationship. “I don’t think they had any type of off-the-field personal relationship, or anything like that. It was just coach-quarterback, and they were both driven for the highest level of success that any person could be driven toward.”
And they succeeded, becoming the best coachquarterback duo of all time, with six championships and nine Super Bowl appearances. They built a football superpower, a dynasty that shaped the NFL for two decades.
Owner Robert Kraft once said it was his job to keep the two together, and he kept the peace for quite some time, stretching out the union as long as he could before Brady finally left last year.
Along the way, a model was created; an empire started by Kraft that Belichick and Brady carried with a farreaching impact.
“It’s the prototype for not just other NFL teams, but for any sports team. When you have the synergy between the leader of the organization, your head coach, and the leader amongst your players, who’s not only at the leadership position, but he’s the best player on your team, that’s it,” said NFL Network analyst and former Ravens scout Daniel Jeremiah. “And they share a vision and the values of work you have to put in and what you have to do.
“I mean, I just think, if you’re an NBA coach, you’d want to have that relationship with your star player, where you can still coach him hard, and he’s not going to get offended or upset about it. Then he’s gonna drive everybody else to reach their capabilities because they know how hard your best player’s working. That’s what you strive for any team.”
There were some fatherson elements to the Belichick-Brady union. They had get-togethers at Gillette Stadium on Tuesdays, normally the players’ day off. They broke down tape together, talked football, and bonded over appreciating the greatness of opposing defensive players such as Ed Reed.
Jeremiah, however, thought their role played out more as co-parents of a large group of men.
“I almost look at it and say it’s like they were parents of the team. Bill and Tom were parents, and they raised the team, the two of them,” said Jeremiah. “I’m sure everybody will spend that whole week trying to divvy up credit. But I look at it as they co-parented that organization for 20 years.”
That’s not to say the parents didn’t fight.
There were emotional tugof-wars and disagreements over Tom’s growing celebrity, not to mention his desire to have personal trainer Alex Guerrero at his disposal in restricted areas of the team’s facility. Belichick and Brady didn’t see eye-to-eye on everything. The relationship was complex. And as Brady’s return to Foxboro nears, their union is once again at the forefront.
“There’s just so much emotional history, love and baggage that it’s kind of hard to quantify their relationship,” said former Patriot Heath Evans. “For this game, though, I just know the mindsets of both these men will be on business.”
That’s also how it was in Foxboro. They always seemed able to focus on the task at hand, even if issues festered between them. The two maintained a professional working relationship because they knew if they were together on a football field, good things would follow.
“It was respectful,” Patriots Hall of Famer Rodney Harrison said of the relationship. “Regardless of what anybody says, Bill Belichick has the utmost respect for Tom Brady. He just does. The work ethic, the consistency, the leadership, everything that he brings, and the humility that comes with it.
“Humility was a big part of why Tom decided to stay there. If Tom was all about himself, Tom could have left, got paid more money, but Tom wanted to be there. He wanted to be with the Patriots organization.”
Until the money and contract became an issue, and Brady no longer felt wanted by Belichick, according to his father, Tom Sr. Guerrero, meanwhile, told the Herald Belichick didn’t evolve with Brady over time. Eventually, Brady left in free agency, believing he could win elsewhere.
Harrison wouldn’t describe it as a love-hate relationship, but believes there was plenty of love between the coach and quarterback.
“When you’re a football player and you love football the way Tom loves football, and Bill loves football, you fall in love with each other football-wise. Because I fell in love with Bill when I got there. I fell in love with football all over again. That’s what he does. He makes you understand the importance of football, and you just fall back in love with football because you’re around likeminded individuals.”
Opposing teams were hard-pressed to crack the duo, and by extension, the Patriots. Mike Tannenbaum, who ran both the Jets and Dolphins during the Belichick-Brady run, admired them both.
“They had a very meaningful and sustained run, and they both deserve a ton of credit,” said Tannenbaum, now an ESPN analyst. “They’ll both wind up in the Hall of Fame and, I think it’s kind of silly to ask who’s better. Both had historic success, and both are one of the best, if not the best at their jobs, as a quarterback and head coach.”
Competing in the division, how often did Tannenbaum wish the marriage would end before it finally did in 2020?
“I wished it every year,” he joked.
“In all seriousness, we knew the bar was high because they were great. And when we had success, it was very fulfilling to know we could compete with them. Obviously they set the bar so high for so many years. And to me, that motivated us to try to do the best we could because that’s who was in the division.”
That’s also part of their legacy. Along with winning, they forced teams to be better, if they hoped to merely compete.
Perhaps that’s the biggest compliment of all.