With the Tampa Bay Buccaneers set to visit New England on Sunday Night Football for the Brady Bowl in less than two weeks, some prominent members of the ex-Patriot’s camp are starting to take shots at head coach Bill Belichick.
Earlier this week while appearing on NBC Sports Boston’s The Patriots Talk podcast, Tom Brady Sr. was asked if he “found a measure of vindication” from his son leaving the Patriots and going on to win his seventh Super Bowl.
“Damn right,” he replied. “Belichick wanted him out the door, and last year he threw 56 touchdowns. I think that’s a pretty good year.” (Brady actually threw 50 last season, but who’s counting?)
Brady Sr. also said his son is “extraordinarily appreciative” of his time in New England, but is “more than happy” about the move to Tampa Bay. “It was pretty obvious that the Patriot regime felt that it was time for him to move on,” he said. “And frankly, it may well have been perfect for Belichick to move on from him.”
With those comments making the rounds and potentially creating distractions inside the walls of Gillette Stadium, Brady’s close friend, personal trainer and TB12 co-founder Alex Guerrero also threw shade at the 69-year-old coach in an interview with The Boston Herald.
Guerrero, who was sued for fraud and called a “glorified snake-oil salesman” by Boston Magazine for marketing a drink that “promised to protect users ‘from the consequences of sports-related traumatic brain injury’” and was also reportedly banned from New England’s team plane and sideline by Belichick during Brady’s tenure with the Patriots, indicated the relationship between the 44-year-old quarterback and his longtime coach deteriorated because the latter did not “evolve” as the former became an NFL legend.
“The interesting thing I think there — and this is just me, an outsider looking in — it was like Bill never really … I think his emotions or feelings never evolved with age,” Guerrero said. “I think in time, with Tom, as Tom got into his late 30s or early 40s, I think Bill was still trying to treat him like that 20-year-old kid that he drafted. And all the players, I think, realized Tom was different. He’s older, so he should be treated differently. And all the players, none of them would have cared that he was treated differently. I think that was such a Bill thing. He never evolved. So you can’t treat someone who’s in his 40s like they’re 20. It doesn’t work. People could have made different choices, and they could have rode out into the sunset together. That could have been a pretty cool story, too.”
As it stands, the story is that Brady, who has thrown nine touchdowns through two games this season, will head back to Foxboro in Week 4 and likely set the NFL’s all-time passing record while playing against his former team. Belichick, who failed to make the playoffs last season and finished below .500 with Cam Newton as his quarterback, will have no choice but to watch and take it, which is really also his only recourse to Guerrero and Brady Sr.’s trash talk. Once Week 4 arrives, he can respond by winning the game, if Brady allows that to happen. He probably won’t.
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