Bill Belichick: Tom Brady Made Correct Call Leaving Patriots
Leave it to former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick to speak his mind.
The current North Carolina head coach and former Patriots icon appeared on FOX News Media's Hang Out with Sean Hannity podcast to talk about his career and time at the college level. As part of the sit-down, Belichick also mentioned his relationship with Tom Brady that resulted in six Super Bowl titles.
Some of his comments about Brady departing in free agency might have caught Patriots fans off guard. After a two-decade long stint in New England, Brady finalized an agreement in March 2020 to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on a roughly $30 million a year deal worth.
The future Hall of Fame quarterback would go on to win Super Bowl LV with the Buccaneers in his first season, and eventually retire after the 2022 season. Belichick said that Brady leaving was absolutely the right call for the legendary player, considering where the team was talent-wise.
Belichick Confirms Long-Lasting Relationship with Tom Brady
"You know, Tom leaving was absolutely the right thing for him to do," Belichick said. "We didn't have a good team in 2020. We just didn't have a good football team. We had all those guys that left - (Rob) Gronkowski and (Julian) Edelman. Most of our team was gone. (Devin) McCourty and a few others were still there, but they were about to go too. We were just at the end."
Belichick had no hard feelings about his quarterback finding a new team, despite what some might think of the often-frowning head coach.
"Honestly, I was happy for him that things worked out well for him in Tampa, because he was with a team - and then he went on and won," he said. "That made me happy for him, because Tom - it wouldn't have gone well in 2020 in New England. On this, I can guarantee that.
Brady propelled the Patriots to six Super Bowl victories, nine AFC championships and 17 AFC East titles. He set nearly every imaginable franchise passing record to go with several NFL and playoff records during his two decades in New England.
He also won 251 games as a starting quarterback (including 35 in the playoffs), completed 7,753 regular season passes for 89,214 yards and 649 touchdowns. He was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame in 2024.
What Led To Brady Leaving New England:
Prior to his final season in New England (2019), the Patriots had given Brady a final contract to try and hammer out a longer-term deal. It never came to fruition, and Brady's final game in a Patriots uniform was an AFC Wild Card loss to the Tennessee Titans.
"We put everything we had into the 2019 season, including paying him a lot of money at the end of the year without anything attached to it," Belichick said. "There was no first right of refusal, there was no franchise tag, nothing. And so we all understood that there was a good chance he would leave.
"I think he made a great career decision, obviously. I wish we could have done more, but we went as far as we could. And look, he proved it - he played longer than anybody, played at a higher level than anybody. And again, tremendous credit to him. Nobody else did that - that was him."
And while some people might have assumed Brady and Belichick had an ever-growing rift between them at the back-ends of their careers, the second-winningest coach in NFL history put those theories to bed.
"I learned so much from Tom. I never played quarterback," Belichick said. "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."
This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/patriots/onsi as Bill Belichick: Tom Brady Made Correct Call Leaving Patriots.
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This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 5:00 PM.