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As Tom Brady’s night of celebration at Raymond James Stadium drew to a close after the most definitive Super Bowl win of his career, he perched in front of a camera for his press conference. As he scrolled through the questions, his eyes would sometimes wander past the screen and connect with passing teammates. And in a moment that would trickle down to social media, Brady grabbed tight end Rob Gronkowski in his line of sight and called out the player who will be inextricably linked with his GOAT CV.
“Robby-G!” Brady called. “Robby-G!”
Brady double winked away, then smiled and pointed.
“Congratulations, baby,” he said. “I will see you later.”
Brady punctuated the exchange with a little punch and another double wink, delivering a live streamed gif of satisfaction.
You will never convince me that timing has nothing to do with Bill Belichick. Just as you will never convince me that Brady and Gronkowski do not feel some form of meaningful justification after leaving the regimented discipline of the New England Patriots in search of fun in football again. Both are determined to prove that joy and victory are not binary and that both can be embraced at the same time.
This lawsuit brought Brady and Gronkowski together in Tampa Bay and wanted this whole 2020 company to exist. Starting with Brady’s insistence that the joy in a football season can be a journey as well as a destination.
And as we saw on Sunday night, Brady proved he was right – the Patriot Way can be transplanted and increases. It turns out that an NFL team can be disciplined, confident, hardworking, and still exert a sense of continued fun during the process, even when the plan doesn’t work perfectly. For at least a season, the Buccaneers, Brady and Gronkowski have proven that the concept of having it all isn’t some fool’s pursuit. It is admirable and achievable. And that apparently doesn’t force Bill Belichick to make it happen.
For those who want to resist the very popular and ongoing story of the Brady and Belichick gang, I get it. In professional football, it shouldn’t be all about taking sides. Especially when the tandem achievements of the best quarterback and coach in NFL history are likely to stand the test of time and set any challengers back, including even Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. For many people, and perhaps even for many Patriots fans, it will be enough to look at the entire New England Dynasty and appreciate it for what it was: a lasting gift of greatness that never ends. can never be diminished by anything afterwards.
Of course, not everyone will feel this. The history of fandom and football is just too greedy not to wonder what could have been. Especially when there are Super Bowl rings involved.
And in that vein, there is suddenly no doubt that Belichick was unceremoniously entered into a sub-category of the Patriots Way which, until 2020, had only hit assistant coaches and players who left the uterus supported by training and quarterback GOATs. And that subcategory is this: Many have achieved championship greatness in New England culture, but hardly any have reproduced that greatness without Belichick and Brady. Players and coaches would win, leave, get paid in the process, then languish as they attempted to reach the top of the mountain without Bill and Tom.
Wellllllll, here we are again on top of the mountain, and suddenly it’s a party of Tom and no one else.
By now everyone knows the simple math. Brady as an individual has more Super Bowls than any team in NFL history. This includes the Pittsburgh Steelers and Patriots franchises, both of which have six. And within that calculation is the inescapable reality that as a head coach Belichick has six New England Super Bowl rings, but zero without Brady as a quarterback. That makes him a lot like the other guys who left the New England system and couldn’t do without a GOAT carrying the load.
Belichick Is have two other Super Bowl rings as the New York Giants defensive coordinator. If we’re specific, his total ring count of eight titles exceeds Brady. But history will always remember the dividing line of what the two did together as a head coach and quarterback – followed by what they did separately. And right now, Brady suddenly looks like he’s carried more Patriots weight than his critics wanted to believe.
We can try to buy that the credit play doesn’t matter to Belichick or Brady. After all, they’ve both been quite rambunctious in their mutual praise and tried to reduce the relentless measure of each other. And we can also try to pretend that some Patriots fans aren’t upset right now after seeing a precious relationship awkwardly dissolve, followed by an icon colliding with happy bliss elsewhere. But accepting either of these suggestions means ignoring what happened. Brady and Belichick made split in the middle of a frozen relationship. And social media alone featured a huge number of Patriots fans absolutely struggling to understand why it was a better scenario to roll the dice with Cam Newton, while Brady took a mediocre 7-9 Buccaneers team. to a Super Bowl victory. It’s probably worth noting here that Brady’s latest Super Bowl victory also came with higher TV ratings in Boston than in Tampa, which says a lot about whether Patriots fans are going for it. still care about him.
All of this suggests that it will linger on Belichick – perhaps even to the point of impacting how we remember his stature as the greatest coach in NFL history. Because what Brady did on Sunday was put an asterisk on it. A qualifier that will open the door for some pointing out what’s real right now: Belichick had immense success with the Patriot Way when Tom Brady was in the building. Then Brady left and took the Patriot Way with him, leaving Belichick behind to accomplish whatever he could in his remaining days. In the first year after Brady, it wasn’t much. Now, every year in a row, he’s only going to put more pressure on Bill to show he’s still the same great coach when he runs his own show with just one GOAT. None of this takes into account what might happen if Brady replicates that 2020 success for another season in Tampa. At this point, we may just need to end the count and officially update The Patriot Way to the Brady Effect.
Not that Brady did all of this alone in 2020. He didn’t. The Buccaneers had a talented roster before he arrived. And the Super Bowl victory was hoisted as much by defense and Tampa Bay coordinator Todd Bowles as it was by Brady. But it would be a mistake not to recognize that it was Brady who also provided the decisive push to import two other former Patriots to Gronkowski and Antonio Brown – who combined to catch Brady’s three touchdown passes against the Chiefs. It was also Brady’s draw that landed running back Leonard Fournette, who played a pivotal role against Kansas City. And of course, there were the pandemic workouts and Brady’s impact on the attack and his pre-Super Bowl text messages and his endless expectations for his teammates to work as hard as him. It all depends on who he became inside the Patriot Way and alongside Belichick.
Now he’s a man apart. Creating his own success away from the womb he and Belichick built. And he’s doing it his own way, with the blessing of a coaching staff, front office, and roster that are happy to go with him.
As Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians framed on Monday: “They were a very, very talented football team. [in 2019]. But we really didn’t know how to win. And when you bring in a winner and they run the ship, it makes a total difference – in your locker room [and] every time we went out into the field. We came back from behind twice with 17 points less. I think about the leadership Tom brings and his attitude, “Hey, let’s go play. It’s never over until it’s over and we’re going to win this thing one way or another. It permeated our entire locker room, his belief that we are going to do it. And knowing that he was there and did it, our guys believed him. It changed our whole football team.
It’s hard to know how to label this. Words like presence and leadership seem too small and ordinary to explain seven Super Bowl wins. But Brady has it. He wears it, uses it, sells it, and makes others believe it’s real where it matters most: on a football field.
Now it’s up to Belichick to show that he can reach that standard without Brady. Whether it’s making the right staff moves, finding another iconic quarterback, or creating a coaching masterpiece in 2021 or beyond, he now has his work cut out for him. Brady definitely answered if either of the two could survive without their counterpart. All Belichick can do now is respond with another headline. If only to show that the consistency of her greatness wasn’t largely driven by the star who ultimately showed he can thrive without her.
Yahoo Sports Super Bowl LV:
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