How did Bill Belichick treat Tom Brady over the course of their two-decade partnership in New England?
Well, it depends on who you ask.
Brady's longtime trainer and close friend, Alex Guerrero, recently made waves when he claimed Belichick failed to "evolve" in his relationship with Brady. According to Guerrero, the Patriots head coach always treated the star quarterback like "a 20-year-old kid," even after TB12 aged into his 40s and amassed unprecedented success.
While Belichick himself wasn't interested in addressing Guerrero's account, former Patriots staffer Michael Lombardi on Friday came to the coach's defense.
"I didn't understand what Alex was talking about because we spent a lot of time bringing people in to talk about how to deal with millennials and how to bridge the generational gap with Tom as he was getting older to some of the younger players on the team," Lombardi said on "Merloni & Fauria," as transcribed by WEEI. "How do we bridge that gap? I know Coach Belichick spent a lot of time in the 2015 offseason on that.
"So I'm not sure what Alex is talking about. I mean, Alex was allowed to come in the building and work his craft and build his business up in that building, when a lot of people were not really of the ilk to believe that what he was doing was in compliance with what the training staff was doing. So I don't understand why people talk like they do, because sometimes they don't make sense to me. They have very short memories about what actually happened."
This topic figures to remain a major talking point over the next week-plus, as the Patriots will host Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Oct. 3.
