Tom Brady On Relationship With Bill Belichick: ‘He Knows Me As Well As Anybody’

Bill Belichick and Tom Brady will forever be linked.

Brady was the quarterback nobody seemed to want in the 2000 NFL Draft — that is everyone except Belichick. The New England Patriots coach took a chance on that overlooked quarterback from Michigan and drafted him in the sixth round. It was a pick that changed the course of both of their lives forever.

You know the history by now — they have won four Super Bowls together and are one of the greatest coach-QB tandems in NFL history.

However, little seems to be known about Brady and Belichick’s relationship on and off the football field. Gary Myers of the New York Daily News dove into that topic and many more in his new book, “Brady vs. Manning: The Untold Story of the Rivalry that Transformed the NFL.”

“He knows me as well as anybody. I know what he expects of me,” Brady said, via an except from the book on MMQB.com. “We don’t probably talk as much as people may think. He trusts me to do my job and lets me do my job. There’s times where I get to express certain things to him, and I think he has a lot of trust in the things that I say and confidence in the things that I say.”

Belichick also praised Brady in the book.

“I love coaching Tom,” Belichick said. “I’ve been fortunate to have him his whole career. We spend a considerable amount of time together. I think that’s important, to have that relationship between the head coach and the quarterback so at least we’re on the same page with what we’re trying to do. He has great feed­back. Nobody works harder or prepares better than Tom does. He’s about as good as it gets in that category.”

When it comes to football, the two are quite similar. Football is their job and they treat it as such. Myers writes that they meet at least twice a week in Belichick’s office to go over the game plan. On the football field, Brady is treated like one of 53 players with no special treatment.

Their encounters off the field are far less frequent, but they did spend time together at the 2014 pro-am tournament at Pebble Beach.

“He doesn’t yell at me out here like he does during the weeks of practice,” Brady said in the book. “We haven’t had too many chances to do things like this, so this is a really special week for me to be with him.”

Brady and Belichick, Belichick and Brady. One is simply not where they are today without the other. It’s one of the greatest duos in football history, and they aren’t finished yet.

Read the full excerpt from the book here >>

Thumbnail photo via Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports Images