Two of the most influential, successful people in NFL history just happened to coexist on the same team for two decades.
The New England Patriots didn’t know what they were getting at first after bringing on Bill Belichick and drafting Tom Brady in the sixth round. It turned into six Super Bowl victories and complete dominance over the entire league.
Because of Brady’s durability, the sample size of the two without each other is limited to just one season — where Matt Cassel stepped in due to Brady’s torn ACL and the Patriots finished 11-5. This long-standing relationship with two dominant figures has created many hypotheticals — wondering where one would be without the other.
Is Brady just a system quarterback who landed in the perfect position under Belichick? Could Belichick have thrived the way he has without Brady at the helm? These questions can never be answered fully, and Brady shared his feelings on the debate during an interview with Howard Stern on SiriusXM.
“I think it’s a pretty (expletive) argument, actually, that people would say that,” Brady said, transcribed by NESN. “Because I can’t do his job, and he can’t do mine. So the fact that you could say, ‘Would I be successful without him?’ — the same level of success — I don’t believe I would have been. But I feel the same and vice versa, as well. To have him allowed me to be the best I can be, so I’m grateful for that, and I very much believe he feels the same about me, because we’ve expressed that to each other.”
Speculation has stirred over the years that their relationship is tainted and that there is a rift because of the power in the locker room. There’s also a feeling that Brady left New England, joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to be free and get out of Belichick’s system. He shut that theory down quickly.
“Absolutely not,” Brady said. “Because this is a part for me in my life to experience something very different, and there’s ways for me to grow and evolve in a different way that I haven’t had the opportunity to do — that aren’t right or wrong, that are just right for me.”
Although the separation won’t answer these questions, it’s still interesting to see what the 42-year-old quarterback and legendary coach can do while being apart for the first time in 20 years.
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