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Bill Belichick and Tom Brady won six Super Bowls together with the New England Patriots, but a narrative that hovered over their greatness was that they were at odds with one another throughout that time.
Belichick, making an appearance on “Hang Out with Sean Hannity,” confirmed what he’s previously said alongside Brady – there’s no fact to that narrative, which was fueled by the media.
Hannity brought up a previous podcast appearance for 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, denouncing it and explaining his respect for his coach.
With Hannity, Belichick agreed “100%” that it was made up, and explained how his quarterback made him a better all-around coach.
“I learned so much from Tom. I never played quarterback,” Belichick said in the lengthy interview. “Tom saw the game through a quarterback’s eyes. I saw the games through a coach’s eyes. Together, I think we both learned a lot from each other. On Tom, how defensive coaches looked at him or looked at offense. Me, on 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 our quarterback in 2002, everything I did from then on was to try to enhance him. The plays that he ran and the things that he did well, we tried to find people that would do those things. Tom was great.”
Belichick remembered that people would say, “I yelled at Tom,” but their relationship was one where the veteran coach didn’t have to waltz around him despite his status in the NFL.
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“I mean, at times, sure. That’s part of coaching,” Belichick added. “But Tom was great about that. A lot of times he would say — I might say to him, ‘Tom, look, it might be a little rough in there today in this meeting because of what happened in the game or yesterday or whatever.’ He’d said, ‘You know, I understand. We probably need it. Make sure you include me because then I’m one of the guys. If you leave me out of it, then it’s like Tom’s great and everyone else is the problem.’ He kinda said, ‘Don’t forget to include me.’
“He would walk out of there and say, ‘This is all of us. We gotta do better. Here’s what we gotta do.’ He was great at that. Tom had great leadership from the day he got there, even though he was the fourth-string quarterback. He led the rookies, he led the guys that were in his class, and that’s something I’ve always tried to do, to get leaders who try to lead from the beginning.”
Belichick, who also discussed his book, “The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football,” with Hannity, referred to Brady as a “great one.” And though some viewed him as a dominant personality that ran the Patriots’ locker room during his time in Foxborough, it wasn’t the case.
“Tom wasn’t a dominant personality. He was just a great leader,” Belichick said. “He would do whatever you asked him to do. Honestly, if you told him to go out there and run a reverse and block the defensive end, he’d go block the defensive end. He’d do whatever the team needed him to do, and he was very competitive.”
There was, however, the end of their run together in New England, where Brady and Belichick ultimately split. The quarterback desired a change of scenery, choosing to go to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he’d 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 supporters of one another since their time with the Patriots ended after 20 years.
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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 scoffed at the football writers for leaving out the coach with the third-most wins all-time.
Mutual respect remains for two of the greatest at their respective football crafts, no matter what the media said then.
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