Asante Samuel said what most people have been thinking. The former New England Patriots cornerback speculated that Tom Brady parted ways with Bill Belichick because the quarterback was tired of the coach’s way of doing things.
Belichick is a notoriously harsh and challenging coach to play for, but he’ll no longer get the opportunity to remind Brady that the quarterback’s practice performances are so bad that the Foxborough High School quarterback could replace Brady. Perhaps Brady is gone, in part, because of Belichick’s incessant pestering, which were intended to fuel players and help the Patriots win games. Samuel weighed in on Brady’s departure during a recent conversation with TMZ sports.
“He probably just got fed up with it at the end of the day. He probably just got tired of it. He probably got tired of some inner-circle things that he wanted,” Samuel told TMZ Sports, explaining Brady might have been upset about departures of tight ends and receivers. “It worked out for me, man. It made me a better man, but it’s not something I enjoyed. … The strict rules. For me, we clashed a lot of heads. I just think I was treated a little differently, but maybe it’s because he was trying to get the best out of me. It worked out for me, so I can’t really say it was that bad.”
He added: “He probably just got fed up with it at the end of the day.”
Brady called Belichick on the phone on March 16 to break the news: the QB would not be returning to New England. That came at a time when Belichick hadn’t put an offer on the table for Brady to make a return, according to NBC Sports Boston. And then Gronk, who was retired at the time, engineered a trade to join Brady on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In fact, tight end Mark Bavoro, who played for Belichick with the Cleveland Browns, thought that happened to Gronk, too.
“Absolutely, without a doubt (Belichick’s coaching style could’ve worn him down),” Bavaro said, via WEEI.com. “It’s not so much Belichick. I say that about Bill Parcells all the time. Bill Parcells was great to play for but I don’t know if I could have kept up that pace under him. It was just so demanding. And Bill Belichick is from the same school. There’s not a lot of wiggle room for older guys with those two coaches. They expect and demand a lot from their players. There’s not a whole lot of fun going on on those teams but there is a lot of winning and that makes it worth it and that makes it great for a short while.”
[vertical-gallery id=914043]