Tom Brady admits ‘tension had developed’ with Bill Belichick during end of quarterback’s time with Patriots

| American Football | 03/25/2025

The QB has offered some new details about his relationship with Belichick

By John Breech

Tom Brady had a legendary 20-year career with the New England Patriots, but it all came to an end following the 2019 season when the eventual seven-time Super Bowl winner left the team in free agency.

There’s been a lot of coverage over the past six years about why the Patriots’ dynasty broke up, but if there’s one person who rarely shares any information about the subject, it’s Brady. The quarterback has never really had anything negative to say about his relationship with Bill Belichick, but he did admit this week that there was definitely “tension” between the two during Brady’s final years in New England.

In the latest edition of his weekly newsletter — Yes, Brady has a newsletter — Brady briefly spent some time talking about his split from the Patriots. First, Brady said he knew that he likely wouldn’t end up finishing his career with the Patriots. His first thoughts about leaving the team happened two to three years before he actually left the team.

“It was a creeping decision that lived passively in the back of mind for [two to three] years,” Brady said of when he thought he’d hit free agency for the first time. “Until March of 2020 when a whirlwind of a few days made me realize that a decision was coming sooner rather than later.”

By the end of the 2019 season, which ended with a playoff loss to the Tennessee Titans, Brady said it was pretty clear he was done in New England and that the tension with Belichick had a lot to do with that.

“After twenty years together, a natural tension had developed between where Coach Belichick and I were headed in our careers, and where the Patriots were moving as a franchise,” Brady wrote. “It was the kind of tension that could only be resolved by some kind of split or one of us reassessing our priorities.”

With no one willing to reassess their priorities, it did end up leading to a split and Brady ended up signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Brady has talked about his split with the Patriots before, but he’s always offered the toned-down version of events, like he did in the Apple TV documentary, “Dynasty.”

“Me and Coach Belichick, we did what we loved and competed for 20 years together,” Brady said. “But I wasn’t going to sign another contract [in New England] even if I wanted to play until [I was] 50. Based on how things had gone, I wasn’t going to sign up for more of it.”

That’s similar to what Brady wrote in his newsletter, except that in the newsletter, he actually admits that there was tension. Patriots owner Robert Kraft has mentioned multiple times that one reason for the breakup is because there was a growing tension between Brady and Bill Belichick. It will be interesting to see if one of those two ever decides to share just how bad that tension got (During the Apple documentary, Kraft said there was one season where they basically didn’t talk to each other).

Although Brady and Belichick didn’t seem to get along over their final few years together in New England, the two definitely seem to be on good terms now. For one, Belichick showed up as an invited guest at Tom Brady’s roast back in May. Also, Brady apparently reached out to Belichick about the Raiders‘ head-coaching job before the team eventually hired Pete Carroll.

It took a few years, but it seems that time does, in fact, heal all wounds, or at least most of them.