Seth Wickersham’s longform ESPN story on the apparent rift between Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots painted a compelling portrait of dysfunction within the NFL’s coldest winning machine.
Brady, Wickersham reported, had fallen out with Belichick over the quarterback’s close relationship with controversial trainer Alex Guerrero. The discord in Foxborough apparently went as high as owner Robert Kraft, who ordered Belichick to trade Jimmy Garoppolo away from New England. (The Patriots sent Garoppolo, Brady’s anointed successor, to the San Francisco 49ers where he has excelled so far).
Belichick said at the start of January he hadn’t read Wickersham’s story and called it “baseless” in quotes reported by Boston Magazine.