The cracks in Tom Brady’s and Bill Belichick’s two-decades-long partnership had been splintering long before the quarterback left the Patriots in free agency.

By the end of the 2019 season, which ended with a playoff loss to the Tennessee Titans, Brady said it was pretty clear he was done in New England and that the tension with Belichick had a lot to do with that.

After twenty years together, a natural tension had developed between where Coach Belichick and I were headed in our careers," Tom Brady wrote in his weekly newsletter.