Patriots great Tedy Bruschi predicted Tom Brady-Bill Belichick split 10 years ago
Tedy Bruschi remembers the car, a black SUV.
He remembers his company, Tom Brady.
And he remembers their conversation, a revealing chat between old friends.
“It was a real heart to heart,” Bruschi told the Herald.
Roughly 10 years ago, Brady picked Bruschi up one offseason night, then at the height of his powers and midway through his Patriots tenure. Bruschi had recently settled into retirement and joined ESPN as an NFL analyst. But during that drive, he was a teammate again, a rare person Brady could unequivocally trust.
So Brady, 34, confided a great secret to Bruschi the world would soon know: he wanted to play into his early 40s, maybe even longer. It was audacious and unprecedented, of course — until it wasn’t. Bruschi believed Brady could outrun Father Time, but first his mind ran to another legendary figure who would get in his way: Bill Belichick.
“Well obviously you’ll be finishing your career somewhere else,” Bruschi told Brady.
The quarterback nodded.
“He wasn’t surprised when I said that, and really I wasn’t surprised to say it,” Bruschi told the Herald. “Because you just know the formula, the way Bill sees you as an aging player. He projects. It what makes him a great coach. He projects … and then he prepares for that situation.
“So when a quarterback gets past 40, he projects to have this team ready with someone else. I just think this was one situation that not even the great Bill Belichick could anticipate, someone playing this well at 44 years old.”
Brady will make his long-awaited return to Foxboro on Sunday, when Bruschi will preview the Pats-Bucs clash during ESPN’s live edition of Sunday NFL Countdown broadcasting outside Gillette Stadium. Bruschi remains close with Brady and Belichick, whose Patriots are six-point home underdogs. Bruschi says he’ll feel torn at kickoff, but appreciates the magnitude of the moment, both for football at large and his former coach and quarterback.
“It’s something you just have to end up doing. And I’m glad (Brady)’s going through this. And I’m glad the Patriots organization is going through this,” Bruschi said. “Because you do get to reflect, and you do get to see the result of a decision, where the most celebrated player in the organization’s history is now somewhere else.”
Even as Brady won a league MVP at age 40 and a Super Bowl at 41, Bruschi says he felt their divorce coming. Recent reporting suggests Brady wanted to leave Belichick in 2017, before he hoisted either trophy. At last the day came in March 2020, barely a year after Brady and Belichick raised their last Lombardi together.
As Brady signed with Tampa Bay, the football-watching world peeked ahead to when his Bucs would next play the Patriots; a game the NFL has now waited 18 months to arrive, but Bruschi predicted more than a decade ago.
“It’s something that I knew I’d see,” he said. “But it’s something I never wanted to see.”
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3ok5vfG
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