Belichick said the club put “everything we had” into the 2019 campaign, and after the wild card exit, it was clear Brady would move on. TB12 spent three seasons in Tampa, winning the Super Bowl with the Buccaneers in 2020, leading the NFL in receiving yards and touchdowns in 2021 and finishing his career in 2022.
Part of the Patriots’ downfall came from a series of failed picks in Belichick and other personnel decisions toward the end of Brady’s run.
“I wish we could have done more, but we went as far as we could,” Belichick said. “And look, he proved it – he played longer than anybody, played at a higher level than anybody. And again, massive credit to him. Nobody else did that – it was him.”
Years after their departure, Brady admitted that the coach-QB relationship grew into a “natural tension” that led to a breakup after two decades. But in recent years, each has expressed admiration for the other’s achievements, noting that they could not have achieved such feats without the other.
“I learned so much from Tom. I never played quarterback,” Belichick said. “Tom saw the game through the eyes of a quarterback. I saw the games through the eyes of a coach. Together, I think we both learned a lot from each other. Tom, how defensive coaches looked at him or looked at offense. Me, about what a quarterback can and what he can’t do, what’s hard, what’s easy, what I can see the game, what I can see the game.
“Tom wasn’t a dominating personality. He was just a great leader. He would do anything you asked him to do. Honestly, if you told him to go out there and run back and cover the defensive end, he would cover the defensive end. He would do whatever the team needed him to do and he was very competitive.”