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Bill Belichick and Tom Brady won six Super Bowls together with the New England Patriots, but a narrative floating around about their greatness was that they were at odds all along.
Belichick, appearing on “Hang Out with Sean Hannity,” confirmed what he previously said alongside Brady: There are no facts in that narrative, which was pushed by the media.
Hannity mentioned a previous podcast appearance by the now UNC Tar Heels head coach, where he was with Brady and Jim Gray. During the show, Brady brought up that “Brady vs. Belichick” narrative, denounced it and explained his respect for his coach.
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New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady celebrate their overtime victory against the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, on January 20, 2019. (Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)
With Hannity, Belichick agreed “100%” that it was all made up and explained how his quarterback made him a better coach in every way.
“I learned a lot from Tom. I never played quarterback,” Belichick said in the lengthy interview. “Tom saw the game through the eyes of a quarterback. I saw the games through the eyes of a coach. Together, I think we both learned a lot about each other. About Tom, how the defensive coaches looked at him or how they looked at the offense. Me, about what a quarterback can do and what he can’t do, what’s hard, what’s easy, what I can see, what I can’t see and how you see the game. And really, once Tom became on our quarterback in 2002, all I saw What we did from then on was try to improve him. The plays he ran and the things he did well, we tried to find people who did those things.
Belichick recalled people saying, “I yelled at Tom,” but their relationship was one in which the veteran coach didn’t have to hang around him despite his NFL status.
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“I mean, sometimes, sure. That’s part of training,” Belichick added. “But Tom was great at it. A lot of times he would say, I could tell him, ‘Tom, look, it might be a little difficult today in this meeting because of what happened in the game or yesterday or whatever.’ He had said, ‘You know, I get it.’ We probably need that. Make sure you include me because then I’ll be one of the guys. If you leave me out of this, then it’ll be like Tom is great and everyone else is the problem.’ He said something like, ‘Don’t forget to include me.’
“He would come out of there and say, ‘It’s all of us. We have to do better. This is what we have to do.’ He was great at that. Tom had great leadership from the day he got there, even though he was the fourth quarterback. He led the rookies, he led the guys that were in his class, and that’s something I’ve always tried to do, get leaders to try to lead from the beginning.”
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady talks with head coach Bill Belichick before the AFC Divisional playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Gillette Stadium on January 16, 2016. (Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY Sports)
Belichick, who also discussed his book, “The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football,” with Hannity, called Brady “a great player.” And while some saw him as a dominant personality who ran the Patriots locker room during his time in Foxborough, that wasn’t the case.
“Tom was not a dominant personality. He was just a great leader,” Belichick said. “He would do anything you asked him to do. Honestly, if you told him to go out and run backwards and block the defensive end, he would block the defensive end. He would do whatever the team needed him to do, and he was very competitive.”
However, the end of their career together in New England came, where Brady and Belichick finally parted ways. The quarterback wanted a change of scenery and opted to go to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he would win a Super Bowl in his first season with his new team.
But while there were those serious, sometimes contentious conversations, Belichick and Brady have been nothing but supportive of each other since their time with the Patriots ended after 20 years.
Tom Brady speaks with head coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots before a game against the Dallas Cowboys at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., on Nov. 24, 2019. (Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)
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In fact, when Belichick was snubbed from the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a first-ballot inductee earlier this year, Brady was among those who mocked football writers for leaving out the coach with the third-most wins of all time.
Mutual respect still exists for two of the greatest in their respective football trades, no matter what the media said at the time.
