After 20 seasons of working together for the New England Patriots, things weren't great between quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick, as nine Super Bowl appearances and six Super Bowl wins masked a lot of problems in their relationship.
However, since Brady's retirement from the NFL, and Belichick's departure from New England, things seem to be going much better. The coach even came to his old quarterback's defense on Monday after Brady hit back at Baker Mayfield's comments that the Buccaneers were stressed out with him on the team.
"Well, I do think Tom and I were a good match there," Belichick said on "The Pat McAfee Show" during his weekly appearance. "Look talk Tom could have fun and pull pranks and make fun of people and make fun of people and all that, but when it was time for business, he was all business. Whether that was in the meeting room, a walkthrough or on the field, there was nothing more important to him than everything being done right. Not just his job, but the players around him. The proper timing, the proper alignments and so forth, and anyone who played with Tom I think would support that - Julian (Edelman), Rob (Gronkowski), Troy Brown, you name it.
"That's kinda the way I was. People will say we didn't have fun, but let me tell you something. Winning six Super Bowl championships was fun. Going to nine Super Bowls was fun. Winning those AFC Championship games. That was fun. The fun was really the winning. I certainly understand where Tom's coming from. Honestly, I think there's a lot more stress when you're not winning. Winning's hard. It's very hard in the NFL, and I think you have to put a lot into it. It's a very fine line between winning and not winning, especially when you get to the final week or two of the season...Nobody is more successful than Brady. I don't know how anyone can question anything that Tom's done. He's probably the greatest player of all time, and he's certainly had the most success of any NFL player... If you want to keep winning, you better keep working or the competition will catch up to you."
It's hard to argue with either Brady or Belichick because they both won more than just about anyone in the history of the game, and if they weren't enjoying it, they probably wouldn't be doing it.
There's definitely more than one way to have fun in the NFL, but you just might not accomplish as much.
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