The wait will be over soon. Tom Brady will finally return to Foxborough this weekend when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take on theNew EnglandPatriots in Week 4 of the 2021 NFL regular season. Needless to say, it will be a special moment for all football fans.
Sunday night‘s matchup will mean the first time TB12 faces the franchise where he cemented a legacy and won six of his seven Super Bowl rings. The latter one, of course, came with the Bucs last season,his first one since leaving New England.
Brady’s departure as a free agent in 2020 raised a lot of questions and it did so again ahead of his highly anticipated return to Gillette Stadium. Even though he may have not wanted to, Patriots coach Bill Belichick had to address this topic recently.
Bill Belichick opens up on Tom Brady’s departure from New England to join Tampa in 2020
Although we’re talking about the most important player in the Patriots’ history, Tom Brady’s tenure in New England could have ended much better than it actually did. Instead of bidding farewell with another trophy or after a deep run in the playoffs, he packed his bags after a Wild Card defeat to the Tennessee Titans.
It seemed like things had to change both for Brady and the franchise, but clearly it was the quarterback who came out stronger from the break-up. With less than a week for the long-awaited game between the Patriots and Buccaneers, this situation was brought up to surface again.
Speaking to WEEI’s The Gregg Hill Show, Bill Belichick was asked if he wanted to re-sign Brady when he became a free agent last year.“I think we’ve been through all the dynamics of that,” Belichick answered. “He looked at his options and made his decision. We weren’t as good an option as Tampa. It wasn’t a question of not wanting him, that’s for sure.”
It didn’t end there, though. During Belichick’s press conferenceon Monday, Tom Curran of NBC Sports Boston mentioned his earlier comment and asked: “You spoke on WEEI today about Tom Brady looking at his options, and he decided Tampa was a better option. Why weren’t the Patriots a better option for him when both Robert Kraft and Brady himself said over and over how much they wanted him to finish his career here?”
“I’m not gonna go back and rehash all that,” Belichick said. “We’ve talked about that”, he added in an attempt to dismiss the subjectuntilCurran interrupted him. “You’ve never talked about it with us,” he fired back.
Belichick then said: “Our focus is on the game here. Look, I have so much respect and appreciation for Tom and everything he did here and for me and for our team. We’re just getting ready to compete against Tampa this week, and we’re gonna keep our focus on that.”
The back and forth continued a bit more: “You talk about rehashing dynamics that you’ve already gone through,” Curran said. “You’ve never done that.” Belichick then explained that“We made a statement when Tom left, and that covered it.”
It seemsclear that Tom Brady‘sdeparture from New England won’t be forgotten easily and both heand Belichick will probably have to continue replying to questions about the split up.