http://www.espn.co.uk/nfl/story/_/p...-brady-bill-belichick-internal-power-struggle
THE PROBLEM WITH living your life under the spotlight is that the camera captures only the public eruption, not the months of silent anger. On Dec. 3, when the New England Patriots played the Buffalo Bills, Tom Brady walked to the sideline after throwing late and behind receiver Brandin Cooks on third down, ending a first-quarter drive. Brady was angrier and more irritable than usual, as has often been the case this season in the eyes of some Patriots players and staff. As he unsnapped his chinstrap, Brady passed offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels on the sideline.
"He was wide open," McDaniels said to Brady, referring to Cooks.
Brady kept walking, and glaring at McDaniels, so the coach repeated: "We had him open."
Brady snapped, pivoting to McDaniels and yelling at him, "I got it!" Everyone within earshot, including head coach Bill Belichick, turned to watch as Brady screamed. He removed his helmet, and as a Patriots staffer held him back -- and with McDaniels' father and legendary high school coach in Ohio, Thom, in the stands behind the bench -- capped off the exchange by yelling, "F--- you!"
Video of the scene went viral, with many rationalizing it as a symptom of Brady's legendary competitiveness. Brady would later apologize to McDaniels, who dismissed the incident to reporters as "part of what makes him great." After all, many in the Patriots' building knew that Brady's explosion wasn't really about McDaniels. It wasn't about Cooks. And it wasn't about the Bills game. It was about the culmination of months of significant behind-the-scenes frustrations. For almost two decades, Belichick has managed to subvert the egos of his best player, his boss and himself for the good of the team, yielding historic results. This year, though, the dynamics have been different.
THE PATRIOTS ARE in uncharted territory. They haven't just won games and titles. They've won at an unprecedented rate and over an unprecedented span, which makes the feelings of entitlement creeping inside Gillette Stadium unprecedented as well. The Patriots, in the only statement anyone associated with the team would make on the record for this story, responded to specific questions by saying that there are "several inaccuracies and multiple examples given that absolutely did not occur," though they declined to go into detail. But according to interviews with more than a dozen New England staffers, executives, players and league sources with knowledge of the team's inner workings, the three most powerful people in the franchise -- Belichick, Brady and owner Robert Kraft -- have had serious disagreements. They differ on Brady's trainer, body coach and business partner Alex Guerrero; over the team's long-term plans at quarterback; over Belichick's bracing coaching style; and most of all, over who will be the last man standing. Those interviewed describe a palpable sense in the building that this might be the last year together for this group.
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Brady, Belichick and Kraft have raised expectations and possibilities so high that virtually no other team in the Super Bowl era could truly comprehend what it's like to be them. Brady and Belichick weren't only pushing the boundaries of what a team could accomplish. They also were challenging basic understandings of how a group of high achievers escape the usual pulls of ego and pride. For 17 years, the Patriots have withstood everything the NFL and opponents could throw their way, knowing that if they were united, nobody could touch them. Now they're threatening to come undone the only way possible: from within.
Schedule, coverage »
• Primer: Bracket, Super Bowl paths »
• Barnwell's preview: A guide to all 66 possible matchups »
It was also the same year that the Patriots would go on a run toward their fourth Super Bowl win, altering the team dynamic in fundamental ways that would come to a head this fall. During their 10-year championship drought, Brady and Belichick had come up just short together and could only dive back into the redemptive power of work, trying to slim the margins between defeat and victory. In beating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, the two men drew strength from different touchstones. Belichick found virtue in his idea of the Patriot Way -- the demanding, football-first culture with an emotionless pursuit of victory -- and Brady found virtue in his Method, which he believed helped him thwart the inevitability of time, reinforcing his belief that he was still not on the downside of his career and deserving of a new contract. In 2016, Kraft and Brady's agent, Don Yee, began negotiating a new deal; Belichick and other Patriots staff had to abruptly leave the NFL combine in Indianapolis to be part of the process. Brady's two-year contract, with a $28 million signing bonus, was designed to set up 2018 as a key year, when the team could, in theory, look at a 41-year-old Brady and his $22 million cap hit and decide if it made sense to transition to Garoppolo.
A year later, after another Super Bowl win -- the Brady-led, historic comeback from 28-3 to defeat the Atlanta Falcons -- Brady's stature in the organization had grown to the point that he was considered management. New players often address him as "sir." As Brady gained power, so did Guerrero, who became an even more divisive force in the building. One player visited TB12 under what he perceived as pressure, and declined to allow Guerrero to massage his injured legs. Instead he asked to keep treatment limited to only his arm, out of fear that one of Guerrero's famous deep-force muscle treatments would set back his recovery. The Boston Sports Journal would report on another player who was told by Patriots trainers to do squats but later instructed by Guerrero to not do them. Brady would tell teammates, "Bill's answer to everything is to lift more weights" -- a claim that many staffers and players felt was unfair, given the team's dedication to soft-tissue science and a healthy diet.
And so after several such incidents, Belichick explained to Brady in early September that many younger players felt pressured to train at TB12 rather than with the team, and asked the quarterback what was going on. Brady said he didn't know anything about any such pressure, according to people briefed on the exchange, and the two men left the meeting without any resolution.
Belichick felt the need to permanently clarify Guerrero's role, drawing sharp boundaries. After the brief discussion with Brady, Belichick emailed Guerrero to let him know that while he was welcome to work with any players who sought out TB12, he was no longer permitted access to the sideline or all of the team headquarters because he wasn't an employee of the Patriots (a point that Belichick would resoundingly make clear when reporters asked about Guerrero).
An email designed to solve problems only created more of them. Guerrero texted some of the Patriots players who were clients and specified, he says now, "that I would need to treat them at the TB12 Sports Therapy Center." But several players told staffers and coaches that Guerrero gave them the impression that Belichick would no longer allow them to work with him. In the view of many Patriots, it was an example of Guerrero trying to split the organization by turning players against Belichick. All of this happened as Brady, serving as TB12's test case, continued to reiterate publicly and privately his goal of playing into his mid-40s. In October, he again explained to Kraft and Belichick his plans to play a few more years. The question was whether Brady had earned long-term security from the Patriots, or if he would finish his career somewhere else.
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Now 76 years old, Kraft ultimately will attempt to broker a solution. He has paid both Brady and Belichick tens of millions of dollars, won and lost some of the greatest games in NFL history with them, and has stood by both at their lowest moments. He apologized in front of a room of owners for Spygate. And he stood by Brady during Deflategate, even after he backed down and accepted the NFL's penalty. Kraft did so even though many staffers in the building believed there was merit in the allegation, however absurd the case. The team quietly parted ways with both John Jastremski and Jim McNally, the equipment staffers accused of deflating footballs -- they've never spoken publicly -- and Belichick reorganized the equipment staff. Kraft has privately told associates he knew that he went too far in his attacks against the league. "I had to do it for the fans," he has told confidants.
A fifth Super Bowl triumph healed some of those wounds, but there's no guarantee that a sixth will fix the rest. Something has to change, that much everyone knows. Many Patriots players and staff believe that Brady is a good man who has a hard time saying no to Guerrero. They've noticed that he seems to be searching this year, as if reaching the pinnacle of his profession is as fleeting as it is rewarding, manifesting itself in outbursts like the one at McDaniels. Belichick seems to be grinding harder than ever, as if more than a sixth championship is at stake. Before the Patriots played the Steelers in December, he told players, "I brought you here for games like this."
But Belichick also has taken a longer view, as though he sees pieces of his impact leaguewide. He's preparing assistant coaches for job interviews elsewhere, which he didn't always do in years past. He has taken pride in Garoppolo's 5-0 record in San Francisco -- and in the fact that Kraft has confessed to people in the building that trading Garoppolo might have been a mistake. He reset a toxic relationship with the Colts with the Brissett trade. He has even become good friends with Goodell. The two men had a long and private meeting during the off week after the regular season, when the commissioner visited Foxborough.
Belichick always had a vision for how, after more than four decades in the NFL, he wanted to walk away, beyond setting up the team at quarterback. He wanted his sons, Brian and Steve, both Patriots assistants, to be established in their football careers. And he wanted the winning to continue without him, to have a legacy of always having the best interests of the franchise in mind. Both Brady and Belichick have redefined how much influence a coach and quarterback can have on a team game. But this year has shown that the legacy of football's greatest coach, like the game itself, is beyond his control.
A FEW HOURS before the Patriots played the New York Jets in the regular-season finale, Belichick walked straight out of the locker room and out to the field. It was 13 degrees before kickoff with subzero wind chill, the coldest regular-season game in team history, but he was wearing a short-sleeve T-shirt, shorts and receiver gloves. Pictures of him went viral, and for a moment it was reminiscent of a legendary playoff game 16 years earlier, when the Patriots played the Raiders in the snow. That night, Brady once recalled in an NFL Films interview, he took the field for warm-ups wearing a sleeveless T-shirt in the thick snow. He was 24 years old, at the beginning of a career only he saw coming. He wanted to send a message to everyone watching that nobody was tougher, both mentally and physically, than this California kid. That night, Brady showed that he was immune to the stage, a deficit, the weather and a stout defense. It was clear that the Patriots had something special, both at quarterback and under the headset, and it created a moment, both emboldening and addictive, that has lasted far longer than anyone could have expected.
On Sunday, the moment -- their moment -- seemed as alive as ever, to the outside. Belichick ordered the field crew to hang thermometers in the hallway outside of the Jets' locker room, just to mess with a franchise he still hates so much that he barely mentions his years there in the Patriots' media guide. The game unfolded like many have for the Patriots this year, with Brady looking mortal at times and like an MVP at others. As usual, the Patriots won. It didn't look like Belichick's last regular-season game as the Patriots' head coach, but several coaches and staffers later remarked to one another that it felt as if it could be. As Brady and Belichick left the field, bundled up in the cold, the only thing clear was that the beginning of the end started a long time ago, masked by success and the joy and pain of the rise, leaving both men this year's playoffs and their collective will to stave off the fall.
THE PROBLEM WITH living your life under the spotlight is that the camera captures only the public eruption, not the months of silent anger. On Dec. 3, when the New England Patriots played the Buffalo Bills, Tom Brady walked to the sideline after throwing late and behind receiver Brandin Cooks on third down, ending a first-quarter drive. Brady was angrier and more irritable than usual, as has often been the case this season in the eyes of some Patriots players and staff. As he unsnapped his chinstrap, Brady passed offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels on the sideline.
"He was wide open," McDaniels said to Brady, referring to Cooks.
Brady kept walking, and glaring at McDaniels, so the coach repeated: "We had him open."
Brady snapped, pivoting to McDaniels and yelling at him, "I got it!" Everyone within earshot, including head coach Bill Belichick, turned to watch as Brady screamed. He removed his helmet, and as a Patriots staffer held him back -- and with McDaniels' father and legendary high school coach in Ohio, Thom, in the stands behind the bench -- capped off the exchange by yelling, "F--- you!"
Video of the scene went viral, with many rationalizing it as a symptom of Brady's legendary competitiveness. Brady would later apologize to McDaniels, who dismissed the incident to reporters as "part of what makes him great." After all, many in the Patriots' building knew that Brady's explosion wasn't really about McDaniels. It wasn't about Cooks. And it wasn't about the Bills game. It was about the culmination of months of significant behind-the-scenes frustrations. For almost two decades, Belichick has managed to subvert the egos of his best player, his boss and himself for the good of the team, yielding historic results. This year, though, the dynamics have been different.
THE PATRIOTS ARE in uncharted territory. They haven't just won games and titles. They've won at an unprecedented rate and over an unprecedented span, which makes the feelings of entitlement creeping inside Gillette Stadium unprecedented as well. The Patriots, in the only statement anyone associated with the team would make on the record for this story, responded to specific questions by saying that there are "several inaccuracies and multiple examples given that absolutely did not occur," though they declined to go into detail. But according to interviews with more than a dozen New England staffers, executives, players and league sources with knowledge of the team's inner workings, the three most powerful people in the franchise -- Belichick, Brady and owner Robert Kraft -- have had serious disagreements. They differ on Brady's trainer, body coach and business partner Alex Guerrero; over the team's long-term plans at quarterback; over Belichick's bracing coaching style; and most of all, over who will be the last man standing. Those interviewed describe a palpable sense in the building that this might be the last year together for this group.
ADVERTISEMENT
Brady, Belichick and Kraft have raised expectations and possibilities so high that virtually no other team in the Super Bowl era could truly comprehend what it's like to be them. Brady and Belichick weren't only pushing the boundaries of what a team could accomplish. They also were challenging basic understandings of how a group of high achievers escape the usual pulls of ego and pride. For 17 years, the Patriots have withstood everything the NFL and opponents could throw their way, knowing that if they were united, nobody could touch them. Now they're threatening to come undone the only way possible: from within.
Schedule, coverage »
• Primer: Bracket, Super Bowl paths »
• Barnwell's preview: A guide to all 66 possible matchups »
It was also the same year that the Patriots would go on a run toward their fourth Super Bowl win, altering the team dynamic in fundamental ways that would come to a head this fall. During their 10-year championship drought, Brady and Belichick had come up just short together and could only dive back into the redemptive power of work, trying to slim the margins between defeat and victory. In beating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, the two men drew strength from different touchstones. Belichick found virtue in his idea of the Patriot Way -- the demanding, football-first culture with an emotionless pursuit of victory -- and Brady found virtue in his Method, which he believed helped him thwart the inevitability of time, reinforcing his belief that he was still not on the downside of his career and deserving of a new contract. In 2016, Kraft and Brady's agent, Don Yee, began negotiating a new deal; Belichick and other Patriots staff had to abruptly leave the NFL combine in Indianapolis to be part of the process. Brady's two-year contract, with a $28 million signing bonus, was designed to set up 2018 as a key year, when the team could, in theory, look at a 41-year-old Brady and his $22 million cap hit and decide if it made sense to transition to Garoppolo.
A year later, after another Super Bowl win -- the Brady-led, historic comeback from 28-3 to defeat the Atlanta Falcons -- Brady's stature in the organization had grown to the point that he was considered management. New players often address him as "sir." As Brady gained power, so did Guerrero, who became an even more divisive force in the building. One player visited TB12 under what he perceived as pressure, and declined to allow Guerrero to massage his injured legs. Instead he asked to keep treatment limited to only his arm, out of fear that one of Guerrero's famous deep-force muscle treatments would set back his recovery. The Boston Sports Journal would report on another player who was told by Patriots trainers to do squats but later instructed by Guerrero to not do them. Brady would tell teammates, "Bill's answer to everything is to lift more weights" -- a claim that many staffers and players felt was unfair, given the team's dedication to soft-tissue science and a healthy diet.
And so after several such incidents, Belichick explained to Brady in early September that many younger players felt pressured to train at TB12 rather than with the team, and asked the quarterback what was going on. Brady said he didn't know anything about any such pressure, according to people briefed on the exchange, and the two men left the meeting without any resolution.
Belichick felt the need to permanently clarify Guerrero's role, drawing sharp boundaries. After the brief discussion with Brady, Belichick emailed Guerrero to let him know that while he was welcome to work with any players who sought out TB12, he was no longer permitted access to the sideline or all of the team headquarters because he wasn't an employee of the Patriots (a point that Belichick would resoundingly make clear when reporters asked about Guerrero).
An email designed to solve problems only created more of them. Guerrero texted some of the Patriots players who were clients and specified, he says now, "that I would need to treat them at the TB12 Sports Therapy Center." But several players told staffers and coaches that Guerrero gave them the impression that Belichick would no longer allow them to work with him. In the view of many Patriots, it was an example of Guerrero trying to split the organization by turning players against Belichick. All of this happened as Brady, serving as TB12's test case, continued to reiterate publicly and privately his goal of playing into his mid-40s. In October, he again explained to Kraft and Belichick his plans to play a few more years. The question was whether Brady had earned long-term security from the Patriots, or if he would finish his career somewhere else.
NFL draft home page » | Projected order »
• 2018 draft QB class primer »
•
•
•
• Kiper, McShay answer 25 questions »
• Underclassmen who have declared »
Now 76 years old, Kraft ultimately will attempt to broker a solution. He has paid both Brady and Belichick tens of millions of dollars, won and lost some of the greatest games in NFL history with them, and has stood by both at their lowest moments. He apologized in front of a room of owners for Spygate. And he stood by Brady during Deflategate, even after he backed down and accepted the NFL's penalty. Kraft did so even though many staffers in the building believed there was merit in the allegation, however absurd the case. The team quietly parted ways with both John Jastremski and Jim McNally, the equipment staffers accused of deflating footballs -- they've never spoken publicly -- and Belichick reorganized the equipment staff. Kraft has privately told associates he knew that he went too far in his attacks against the league. "I had to do it for the fans," he has told confidants.
A fifth Super Bowl triumph healed some of those wounds, but there's no guarantee that a sixth will fix the rest. Something has to change, that much everyone knows. Many Patriots players and staff believe that Brady is a good man who has a hard time saying no to Guerrero. They've noticed that he seems to be searching this year, as if reaching the pinnacle of his profession is as fleeting as it is rewarding, manifesting itself in outbursts like the one at McDaniels. Belichick seems to be grinding harder than ever, as if more than a sixth championship is at stake. Before the Patriots played the Steelers in December, he told players, "I brought you here for games like this."
But Belichick also has taken a longer view, as though he sees pieces of his impact leaguewide. He's preparing assistant coaches for job interviews elsewhere, which he didn't always do in years past. He has taken pride in Garoppolo's 5-0 record in San Francisco -- and in the fact that Kraft has confessed to people in the building that trading Garoppolo might have been a mistake. He reset a toxic relationship with the Colts with the Brissett trade. He has even become good friends with Goodell. The two men had a long and private meeting during the off week after the regular season, when the commissioner visited Foxborough.
Belichick always had a vision for how, after more than four decades in the NFL, he wanted to walk away, beyond setting up the team at quarterback. He wanted his sons, Brian and Steve, both Patriots assistants, to be established in their football careers. And he wanted the winning to continue without him, to have a legacy of always having the best interests of the franchise in mind. Both Brady and Belichick have redefined how much influence a coach and quarterback can have on a team game. But this year has shown that the legacy of football's greatest coach, like the game itself, is beyond his control.
A FEW HOURS before the Patriots played the New York Jets in the regular-season finale, Belichick walked straight out of the locker room and out to the field. It was 13 degrees before kickoff with subzero wind chill, the coldest regular-season game in team history, but he was wearing a short-sleeve T-shirt, shorts and receiver gloves. Pictures of him went viral, and for a moment it was reminiscent of a legendary playoff game 16 years earlier, when the Patriots played the Raiders in the snow. That night, Brady once recalled in an NFL Films interview, he took the field for warm-ups wearing a sleeveless T-shirt in the thick snow. He was 24 years old, at the beginning of a career only he saw coming. He wanted to send a message to everyone watching that nobody was tougher, both mentally and physically, than this California kid. That night, Brady showed that he was immune to the stage, a deficit, the weather and a stout defense. It was clear that the Patriots had something special, both at quarterback and under the headset, and it created a moment, both emboldening and addictive, that has lasted far longer than anyone could have expected.
On Sunday, the moment -- their moment -- seemed as alive as ever, to the outside. Belichick ordered the field crew to hang thermometers in the hallway outside of the Jets' locker room, just to mess with a franchise he still hates so much that he barely mentions his years there in the Patriots' media guide. The game unfolded like many have for the Patriots this year, with Brady looking mortal at times and like an MVP at others. As usual, the Patriots won. It didn't look like Belichick's last regular-season game as the Patriots' head coach, but several coaches and staffers later remarked to one another that it felt as if it could be. As Brady and Belichick left the field, bundled up in the cold, the only thing clear was that the beginning of the end started a long time ago, masked by success and the joy and pain of the rise, leaving both men this year's playoffs and their collective will to stave off the fall.
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