Bill Belichick Nearly Left The Patriots In 2017

Longtime New England patriots head coach Bill Belichick outlived Tom Brady with the team, but it was definitely up-in-the air for a while. In fact, a new report is indicating that Belichick thought about bailing on the team in 2017.

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In 2017, it was reported by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham that Belichick was trying to retain quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, in order to start preparing for life without Tom Brady. This led to some turmoil between Brady, Belichick, and the team’s ownership. Brady ended up winning, and Garoppolo was traded to the 49ers.

Now, Wickersham is revealing that things got so dicey, that Belichick was looking for a way out at one point.

According to ESPN's @SethWickersham, in 2018, following Tom Brady's MVP season in 2017 which led to the JG trade, the standoff between Brady and Belichick led Bill to talk to the #Giants, Washington and the #Dolphins about coaching there [@harrisonvapnek]pic.twitter.com/ETLyLjmGSI

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) April 20, 2021

This is just another fascinating aspect of everything that went on behind the scenes during the Brady-Belichick relationship.

I don’t know about you guys, but I cannot wait for the documentary on the New England patriots dynasty many years down the road. There’s so many things that we don’t know about what happened behind closed doors, and all the meanwhile, the team just kept on winning.

Tom Brady and Bill Belichick might have the most interesting relationship of any successful player-coach tandem in the history of sports.

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