Tom Brady made ‘right’ call to leave Patriots

Tom Brady’s determination to depart the Patriots in free company after the 2019 season didn’t simply put an finish to the Patriots’ two-decade dynasty.

It additionally marked the start of the top for his longtime head coach in Bill Belichick, who went 29-38 over the subsequent 4 seasons with only one playoff look earlier than the Patriots opted to maneuver on following a disastrous four-win season in 2023. 

However, in an excerpt from Gary Myers’ new ebook “Brady vs. Belichick: The Dynasty Debate”, Belichick informed Myers that Brady made the precise name in opting to depart New England searching for one other Tremendous Bowl contender — deeming the state of affairs in Foxborough an “not possible state of affairs” for the star quarterback. 

“He completely made the precise determination. We couldn’t put a very good crew round him,” Belichick informed Myers, as published by The Boston Globe. “Financially, after stretching for ten years, we ran out of cap house and needed to rebuild the crew; 2019 was our final actual alternative to win; 2020 was a rebuild, and we had been again within the playoffs in 2021.”

Regardless of profitable a Tremendous Bowl in the course of the 2018 season, Brady’s ultimate yr in Foxborough was rife with hypothesis that the six-time Tremendous Bowl champion was pondering his future after main a New England crew brief on high-end expertise. 

Regardless that the 2019 Patriots closed out the yr with a 12-4 report, New England fell to Mike Vrabel and the Tennessee Titans, 20-13, within the Wild Card Sport at Gillette Stadium. 

The 42-year-old Brady additionally posted one in every of his extra pedestrian stat traces that season — finishing 60.8 p.c of his passes for simply 24 touchdowns and eight interceptions. 

However New England additionally had a diminished receiver corps past Julian Edelman (100 catches, 1,117 yards), with Phillip Dorsett standing as the subsequent wideout with essentially the most yardage on the crew with simply 397 yards on the yr.

Brady went on to signal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in March 2020, ultimately main his new crew to a Tremendous Bowl championship that very same season. Surrounded by a a lot deeper roster in Tampa, Brady thrived over his three years with the Bucs — throwing 108 touchdowns and 33 interceptions over that stretch whereas averaging 4,881 passing yards per season. 

As Myers famous in his excerpt, Belichick’s candid feedback in regards to the state of the Patriots was considerably stunning — provided that it was years of poor drafting that additionally contributed to the expertise drain hampering New England throughout Brady’s ultimate years with the crew. 

“Belichick was accountable for the dismal state of the roster in 2020 after years of questionable drafts, poor free agent signing choices and never having a Brady succession plan in place after Jimmy Garoppolo was traded to the 49ers in 2017,” Myers wrote. “The 2021 playoff season ended with a 47-17 wild-card loss in Buffalo. Issues fell aside for Belichick and the Patriots in 2022, they usually imploded the subsequent yr. Kraft fired Belichick in January 2024 after a 4–13 season.”

Past the state of New England’s roster, Brady acknowledged in a publish on his e-newsletter earlier this yr that his relationship with Belichick had been deteriorating over his ultimate years with the Patriots — prompting him to proceed his profession elsewhere. 

“The fact was, after twenty years collectively, a pure stress had developed between the place Coach Belichick and I had been headed in our careers, and the place the Patriots had been shifting as a franchise,” Brady wrote. “It was the form of stress that would solely be resolved by some form of cut up or one in every of us reassessing our priorities.”

 

Conor Ryan is a employees author overlaying the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Pink Sox for Boston.com, a task he has held since 2023.