It's long been told that for years, Bill Belichick was ready to move on from Tom Brady.
Well, Belichick got his apparent wish ahead of 2020, yet Brady won a Super Bowl in his first campaign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Meanwhile, Belichick and the New England Patriots missed the playoffs in three out of the four post-Brady years.
Belichick and the Pats mutually parted ways at the end of this season, but despite plenty of other gigs available, some of which he interviewed for, it's looking likely that Belichick will not be on an NFL sideline for the first time since 1974.
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Of course, the relationship between Brady and Belichick soured toward the end of their tenure. Belichick's hard-nosed style may have worked for a dynasty, but it was the total opposite for Mac Jones and the rest of the Pats over the last four seasons.
And that ego, Tom Sr. says, played a role into the end of said dynasty.
"Bill is tough. He runs a military system. It’s a different generation. Bill is a great, great, great coach," Tom Sr. told the Boston Globe. "But his interpersonal skills are horrible. That’s the bottom line."
"How many times has he said — back in ‘15 or ‘16 — that he wanted to win without Tommy? When he went without Tommy, he didn’t know what he was losing. You’re losing more than just a quarterback. Ego sometimes gets in the way of things. I think it did with Bill. Now, he’s in a situation where he’s gotten crucified for the last few years by everybody and a lot of luster has come off his rose."
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Tom Sr. did say that Belichick, an eight-time Super Bowl champion, "is the best coach in football, bar none" but may be a bit seasoned for today's game.
"Bill loves coaching," Tom Sr. said. "But again, I don’t know if teams look at Bill — he’s 71 now — I don’t know that they’re going to bend over backward for him, to provide him the full array of control that he wants to have. That’s the bottom line. He could probably turn up somewhere and find 16 games [to win] in two years or three. But if he’s out after that, and the team has reformulated their front office to accommodate his wishes … from their standpoint, I don’t know if the magic is worth the accommodations that they have to make."
Belichick remains a free agent after spending 24 seasons in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
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