Sometimes the answer is right before your eyes.
Or, in this case, your ears.
In the endless comments, analysis and hype this week preparing for Tom Brady’s Sunday night return to New England, leading his Super Bowl champion Buccaneers against his fledgling former Patriots team at Gillette Stadium, there was a truth-shall-set-you-free comment from Bill Belichick that didn’t get nearly enough attention.
During his Wednesday morning press conference with the gathered media in Foxborough, one in which Brady’s former coach and mentor heaped nearly endless praise and superlatives on his GOAT pupil, Belichick slipped in a simple adjective/adverb when talking about TB12’s career that was the definitive root of the dynastic duo’s divorce.
It was right there. So obvious you could skip right past it.
Don’t worry if you missed it, most probably did. It got lost in looking back to tales of disrespectful goodbyes over the phone and too much looking ahead to a matchup on paper that honestly looks a bit lopsided.
“Tom's had an unbelievable career,” Belichick said. “There's not enough superlatives and adjectives to compliment him on everything that he's achieved and continues to achieve, so yeah. It's unbelievably impressive.”
See it now? For all the world to hear?
An “unbelievable career” that’s “unbelievably impressive.”
There, Belichick said it. OK? He didn’t believe that Brady could do what he’s been doing! It’s that simple.
Back in 2014 when the Patriots drafted Jimmy Garoppolo Belichick was already talking about Brady’s age and, by extension, his contract situation.
Brady was 37 at that time and doubts were already creeping in for Belichick and his four decades of NFL experience. Forty years of never seeing a quarterback like Brady play at an elite level consistently into his early 40s. Certainly not into his mid-40s. There were even signs that might lead one to think Brady might be deteriorating ever so slightly.
Belichick couldn’t help but find it unbelievable that a 43-year-old could lead a team to a Super Bowl title. Like Brady did.
Unbelievable that a 44-year-old guy in his 22nd season could lead the NFL in touchdown passes. Like Brady is doing.
Unbelievable that paying a passer at that point in his career, investing long term at $25 million or more per season, would be good business. For the GOAT, it is.
One really talented, experienced, strong-willed man had confidence, confidence in his himself to be able to do something that had never been done before. Maybe will never be done again.
Another really talented, even more experienced, strong-willed man simply couldn’t bring himself to believe the unbelievable.
Beyond on the palace intrigue, salacious stories and soap opera tales told in his upcoming book on the Patriots dynasty entitled “It’s Better to be Feared,” ESPN senior writer Seth Wickersham also simplifies the termination of the Belichick and Brady relationship in simple terms.
“Brady felt like, look we’ve won five Super Bowls, I want to play until I’m 45 years old. Why can’t we just fix this up? The owner wants him to be there until he’s 45 years old. It was Bill who had reservations about it,” Wickersham said this week on The Rich Eisen Show. “I always go back to the end of that Falcons Super Bowl, when they beat the Falcons (after the 2016 season). If they had just signed Tom Brady to a five-year deal right then. So much of the acrimony that transpired over the next couple years would have been averted.”
Yup. Brady would have gotten what he wanted. And all talk of being appreciated, not being surrounded by enough talent, needing say in personnel, blah, blah, blah, would have never entered the narrative.
If Belichick had just had faith in Brady to do something unprecedented or, rather, “unbelievable” then all this may have been avoided.
If Belichick had just gone against his own beliefs and tried-and-true football instincts, none of this would have happened.
But Belichick couldn’t, wouldn’t or maybe even shouldn’t have done that.
And if we’re all being honest, thinking with our analytical minds instead of our revisionist history hearts, none of us believed in Brady the way he believes in himself. None of us would have projected him playing as well as he has for as long as he has.
Don’t lie to yourself.
Brady was right.
Belichick was wrong.
It was an honest mistake. Nothing more. Nothing less.
As “unbelievable” as that may now seem.