There have been reports about this for over a year that Brady and Belichick aren’t on the same page, but a new book highlights what the actual problems are.
They go back a few years.
“If you’re married 18 years to a grouchy person who gets under your skin and never compliments you, after a while you want to divorce him,” a source with knowledge of the Brady-Belichick relationship told ESPN’s Ian O’Connor, author of “Belichick: The Making of the Greatest Football Coach of All Time,” after the 2017 season.
“Tom knows Bill is the best coach in the league, but he’s had enough of him. If Tom could, I think he would divorce him.”
ESPN’s Seth Wickersham and several Boston outlets had reported on the escalating tension between Brady and Belichick during last season, much of it revolving around the coach’s decision to reduce the team access that had been granted to Alex Guerrero, Brady’s business partner and fitness coach. Belichick was no longer giving his quarterback the most-favored-nation status that he had enjoyed in the past.
Brady was the league’s only starting quarterback who didn’t attend voluntary OTAs in the spring; he also was angered by the Malcolm Butler benching in the Super Bowl LII loss to the Eagles.
According to the book, Brady’s family long felt Belichick would push out his longtime franchise player before he was ready to retire. Brady’s sister Nancy is quoted telling people that her brother believed “Belichick will definitely do to him someday what the Colts did to Peyton [Manning].”
Brady started worrying for his job almost immediately after Belichick cited his age and contract status — and the coach’s own desire to be “early rather than late at that position” — when the Patriots drafted Garoppolo in 2014.
Brady was also upset that Belichick didn’t have his back during deflategate.
The book seems interesting and has a few good paragraphs about Aaron Hernandez.
Flip the pages for video fo the author speaking about the book.